


Faltering Beacons

by angharabbit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canadian Winters, F/M, Moist?, NSFW, No Avonlea character has been sullied, Plot is weird and wholesome but holds together porn, Virgin sex, also an Anne of Green Gables au, butter tart porn, canonverse, inappropriate use of Michigan logging wheels, kind of, roughish sex, with a but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-03-07 05:06:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18866305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharabbit/pseuds/angharabbit
Summary: One wormhole and two crash landings later, Rey finds herself a guest at Green Gables.Being relentlessly pursued for her mechanical skills by the Blythe's new farmhand, Rey is issued an ultimatum: fix Kylo's ship so he can return to the First Order, or prepare for a life on this quaint planet bound by his side.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very silly story.
> 
> Sexual tension starts in chapter two, smut starts in chapter three.
> 
> My thanks to SaintHeretical for the kind words about this nonsense.
> 
> Feel free to point out typos. I'm an impatient editor.

There were several incidents of good fortune to mitigate the most appalling incident of bad fortune Rey was to experience.

It was certainly misfortune that the latest galactic game of chase being played by a determined Rey of Jakku and an incensed Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order led to two fiery crashes on the unknown planet on the other side of an unexpected wormhole.

Rey's blessings, however, were many. That surrounded by deep dark waters, she came down on a land mass. That on that island she came down in a secluded iced-over pond, isolated by tall feathery fir trees, softening her landing. That it was the first heavy snowfall of the year 1908 (in this location's reckoning) on the strange planet, obscuring the two plummeting, flaming streaks.

It was also fortuitous that that very evening the local newspaper had run a story about a mill outside of Charlottetown. It had been discovered that its employees were little better than slaves, kept in hard labour, and there had been a mass escape. The mill owners had offered a bounty for each employee identified, but as the journalist stated, surely no decent person would return a human being to such conditions.

Most fortunate, however, was that Matthew Cuthbert happened to be standing on the covered porch of his farm homestead, Green Gables. Driven outside to smoke in the blizzard by his sister Marilla's headache, and the judgemental fake coughs of her guest, Rachel Lynde, Matthew heard over the wind the sound of something cracking the ice on Barry's Pond. Something big.

"Marilla, I think summits fallen in the pond. I'm going to go have a look," Matthew called through the door, scooping up heavy gloves, the kitchen lantern, and a rope.

He wasn't a fast man. In his 60's, a life time of unending labour, and a bad heart, he tied one end of his rope to the gate, and meandered best he could to the pond. He felt the massive cherry tree as he passed, the creek bridge, then felt the slope down to the pond banks.

In the hollow over the pond he could just make out the figure of a person flailing and trying to climb out of the icy waters.

"Hey," he called urgently, "over here!"

The figure managed to claw themselves out, but stilled on the snowy banks, unconscious or exhausted or succumbed to hypothermia or drowning. Looping the last of the rope around his elbow, Matthew retrieved the body.

With a mighty groan, the cold making his body creak and ache more than usual, he hoisted the person in his arms and struggled his way back to the house. The lantern was stuck on one finger, the rope nearly useless now. He made his way through the storm by memory, and a bit more of Rey's luck.

When he could see the lights of Green Gables, the white two storey farmhouse with the distinctive green trim, his sister and neighbour were waiting at the door.

Getting his burden as far as the kitchen floor, Matthew dropped to his knees and panted, unable to hear Mrs Lynde's flurry of "Heavens!" and "Well I never!"s.

The back door opened again, the hired man knocking snow off his hat from the short run over from his quarters in the barn loft.

"I saw the lantern," he explained, eyes training onto the floor.

"Matthew pulled her from the pond, Martin," Marilla said crisply, examining the young women as she pulled herself together. She set her spectacles and her knitting on the kitchen table, tying an apron on over her house dress. "We have to get her out of those wet clothes and into a warm dry bed."

"Good gracious, she's just in rags," Mrs Lynde exclaimed indignantly, stoking up the fire in Marilla's kitchen stove and filling the kettle with water. The delicate lace at her cuffs and shirtwaist collar were safely tucked in from harm.

"Martin, can you carry her upstairs, then see to Matthew?"

Easily lifting her, Martin was pointed towards the spare room.

"I know Anne won't be home from Queens now until spring thaw, but still doesn't seem right to use her room for a stranger," Marilla mused, gathering up the heating bricks usually in her room and her adopted teenage daughter's.

Mrs Lynde stripped the freezing body with ruthless efficiency, scrubbing at the blue and white skin with a towel until she was dry, and then bundling her up in layers of flannel and quilts.

"Don't know how many times I've done this with my ten," Mrs Lynde muttered. "I always warned them about the ice but they went on and fell through anyway. This girl's skinny as a rail, thank the Lord or Matthew wouldn't have been able to shift her, and did you see all those scars? Burns, mostly, I'd say," her normal brisk tone returning. "Except that one there," she pointed at the upper arm, "not quite fully healed, more like a cut. Marilla," she exclaimed suddenly.

Marilla raised an eyebrow, used to her longtime neighbour and friend's prattle. The pain in her head had eased in the flurry but was returning full force.

"What if this is one of those runaways, from the paper, from the city?"

Marilla thought for a moment, looking again at the short, loose shoulder length hair, the thin, pinched face, the rags.

"Could be," she agreed.

"Reckon we oughta keep her being here to ourselves until we know more," Mrs Lynde offered, biting back the excitement of being executor of such a secret.

"Reckon so," Marilla agreed slowly. "She'll need a stitch to wear when she wakes."

"Well, she's slim as you, and looks a grown woman. Do you have a dress to lend? Anne might have an old cardigan and a few things of hers you could spare as well."

Marilla nodded, noting that after having twelve babies and raising ten littles, Rachel's clothes certainly wouldn't fit the girl. Her own shape unaltered by time or bloom, Marilla could sympathize with the hard, sturdy stranger.

"I'll go check on Matthew," she said, thinking to her brother's increasingly delicate condition. They'd taken on Martin to ease his day to day burden, but the frustrating man still worked like he had at eighteen with no regard for the doctor's dire warnings, or the painful spells that seized his chest.

Not that Marilla was in good condition herself. The doctor had begun using threatening phrases like "irreversible loss of sight" and "reduced capacity for independent living". She had a feeling that when Anne was home after her finals they were going to have to come clean to her about their failing health.

Kylo Ren received no such welcome on this planet.

His landing had only been semi-controlled as his TIE plunged into the pitch black scrub brush. One by one systems failed as the ship rolled and heaved through the snowy branches, coming to a stop in a tangle of bare wild lilac branches.

In this planet's gravity he was thankfully right side up, or close to it, and a large crack through his view screen letting in frigid air assured him the atmosphere was generally hospitable.

Indulging in his most pressing emotion, he used his fear, his passion, his anger with Rey to try to find her. Closing his eyes, breathing deeply, he reached out in the Force for her hopefully living presence. Nothing.

He pushed, using the pain of the tension in his head to feed his search.

Find the girl.

Looking further and further, Kylo tried to remember where exactly on the island he may have seen the fireball of Rey's ship fall. He began scanning the minds of the people in the firelight houses, searching whole villages for someone who had seen something. A meteor, two strange meteors, a crash, a woman, anything.

He slammed into something, reeling his extended self back. A flash of surprised blue eyes, curling smoke, and snowflakes. Where the mind had been was now a silent, dark hole in the web of the Force.

It hadn't been Rey, that was certain, but he thought he'd managed to a single glimpse of her in the mind before it had shut him out.

Rey on the wooden floor of a brightly lit room surrounded by people. No blood. No sign of imminent danger.

Kylo slumped back into his pilot's seat, the throb of a headache beginning between his eyes. He ran his leather-clad fingers through his hair, clawing it back.

With a wave of his hand he sealed the crack in the glass. The pod would warm again quickly with his body heat.

Deciding to stay in his ship until dawn, he closed his eyes, disciplined himself to doze. His brain wouldn't cooperate. It was still trying to process the thousands of random thoughts it just taken in.

The men smoked pipes here, like some of his parents' Ewok friends on Endor. Perhaps men on this planet could adequately explain the appeal of filling a vial with purchased, inedible plants, lighting it on fire, and sucking on it, in detriment to health and taste.

He had found several other men with the name Ben in his search, and decided to use his old name to blend in. It was likely to be jarring and unpleasant, but sliding in and out of these people's memories without leaving much of an impression was a goal.

Rey would need to be looked for manually. Even conscious, he couldn't be sure he could push past her mental shields. He could track the black hole mind to her as his best strategy.

This planet could be his prison/home for awhile. He would need to find permanent shelter, an occupation to provide sustenance. Opportunity would be easy to find for one who could insinuate himself into an employer's thoughts.

Dawn was a slightly lighter snowstorm, but Kylo knew it was time to leave his tiny haven. Packing all of his critical supplies in a backpack, layering his clothes in a manner that didn't look too different from the locals, he stepped into the snow and sank. It was waist deep on him, wetter than he expected, and the wind swept it into his neck and ears.

The ship was beyond his knowledge of repair. He had an emergency beacon signal, which he switched on despite being beyond the range of known space, but the TIE was going no where. A brilliant mechanic could, with great ingenuity, get it off the ground, he assessed, but that was not going to be him.

Fortunately he knew a brilliant mechanic.

Mid-morning he felt a stirring in the back of his mind, relief flooding his frozen body. He'd found a road that led to a town, and inquired about viewing a map. The island was terribly small, but that aided his search greatly. Rey had likely come down in the area around Carmody, or even one of the surrounding villages like Avonlea.

Pinpointing her location would be much easier in his mental map now that she was conscious.

_Good morning._

Rey didn't seem relieved or surprised to hear his voice in the back of her head, but slightly amused.

_You're safe and well?_

_I seem to have found kind strangers,_ she responded. _I'm warm and dressed and they're giving me a potion of leaves, animal milk, and sugar, and another potion of salty bird water, to restore my health. You're cold._

 _I am,_ he said honestly. _I'm coming to find you, Rey. Is your ship operable?_

There was a long stretch of silence. Kylo listened to the crack-crunch-squeak of his boots in the snow, wondering how the substance could make so much noise.

He'd almost prefer sand, nuisance that it was.

 _It's at the bottom of a frozen pond, completely ruined,_ she mourned. _If I'd gotten to it right away I could have salvaged the-_

 _Mine could be fixed,_ Kylo interrupted. _But I can't do it alone. Help me, and we can both escape. Together._

The nothingness that followed was so long that Kylo thought Rey had fallen asleep.

_No. No, I won't help you. It's better for everyone if you have to stay here._

_Forever?_

_Yes. Forever._

  
xxx

  
Rey peeled potatoes over the kitchen sink, winter sunlight flooding through the window. It reflected off the unbroken snow, mirrored and enhanced until the very air shone. With each stroke of the razor sharp knife Rey could see the burst of juices explode and sparkle as the peel was forced from the vegetable.

The starch coated her hands, chunks of potatoes sticking to the knife, but it promised to be another hot, solid meal made by her own hands. She envied the independence of the Cuthberts, having everything they truly needed to survive around them on their land. It took an incredible amount of work, but Rey was used to that. Unlike her past life of Jakku, there would always be enough food for those willing to work in Avonlea.

Some of the work was a downright pleasure.

Often Marilla wanted no more help than someone to read to her. The older woman moved with muscle memory and perfect grace around the kitchen, her hands kneading and sculpting like an artist, but her eyes troubled her greatly. In the short weeks Rey had been guest at Green Gables she'd seen debilitating headaches lay Marilla out for hours, leaving Rey to patch together such meals for the men as she had learned in their time together, and to tend Marilla best she could. Blaming her taste in literature on her adopted daughter Anne, Rey could spend hours in the darkened sitting room, reading stories and essays to her new friend by the flickering light of a low candle.

Teaching Rey to sew and knit had been a task Mrs Lynde had taken upon herself, as Marilla's eyes were too weak to properly evaluate fine work. Accustomed to teaching her daughters as young girls, all wiggles and giggles, drawn to go play instead of stitch, she found Rey a focused and capable student. Rey's tension smoothed with practice, her stitches becoming even and fine enough that Rachel started her on small embroidery samplers with simple words and flowers.

"I hope you don't mind the plain dresses," Marilla had said self-consciously, watching the lovely younger woman move about in one of her old house dresses, a faded blue apron cinching her waist.

Rey looked lost a moment.

"I don't see the point in wasting time and fabric on random bits and frill that are hard to clean and serve no function," she said, furrowing her brow. "The clothes you've loaned me are warm and appropriate, and I'm grateful."

And have a handy pocket for my lightsaber, Rey thought.

Kylo, now Ben, likewise had become accustomed to his work. Often repetitive physical labour in cold, wet weather, he used the time to condition his body and meditate. With Rey unwilling to help him repair his ship, he pressed at the edges of her mind, seeking her knowledge. He sent his mind deep into his own memory, looking for helpful details he may have missed in flight sessions or meetings with the engineers.

John Blythe was lonely, Ben knew, and sometimes during snowstorms they'd sit in the widower's kitchen playing chess, eating bread and cheese, and sometimes Mr Blythe would show him how to whittle. Ben was permitted to read any of the son's books, and soaked in the strange, rustic knowledge.

They lived their quiet, parallel lives, waiting for the moments they'd cross paths again.

  
xxx

  
Matthew had generously provided Rey with his toolbox and carte blanche to tinker with anything she found in the drive shed after she repaired a broken sleigh runner bracket with little more than her two hands and her mechanical instinct.

It was warmer than she had expected in the unheated wooden building, the winter wind broken once by the boards and once by the slender cedars growing in a tall row against the building. Rey took off her her coat, her scarf ends tucked into the waist of her apron. The carriage was a curiosity. She was pretty sure it was in need of some general maintenance, and she was happy to provide it, but she saw many opportunities to improve the design. Perhaps Matthew would allow her to be so bold as to take the little buggy apart with so many weeks before the spring thaw.

She rose up from a squat, ran her hands over the polished wood, the rough leather seats, the perfectly turned wheel spokes.

It may not fly, but she could imagine how the salty sea wind would feel in her face with a strong horse racing down the red dirt roads along the shore. Martin had told her if she cared to, he'd teach her to ride the steady Green Gables work horse.

A note of disquiet soured Rey's joyful anticipation.

Green Gables wasn't a permanent solution. The Cuthberts were generous people, and she earned her keep at the moment, but things would change when their daughter Anne returned from her schooling. Rey would need to find work, a home, a life of her own. Opening her own foundry someday had crossed her mind, if she could convince someone to teach her the trade. Perhaps something to do with engineering carriages, boats, who knew, perhaps she could even help get vehicles in the air.

"Head in the clouds, scavenger," came a familiar, unwelcome voice in her head.

Darkness closed around her.

Ben caught her before she fell, her body as real in his arms as if he actually stood in the drive shed. He swept her up, determined to carry her back to where his real body sat meditating in the Blythe's barn loft. Force visions be damned, he was taking his prize in the flesh even if it had taken him weeks to memorize and successfully envision every step of the journey.

His black cloak swirled around him in stark contrast to the snow, flakes slipping under his raised hood and melting.

"Taking you back where you belong," he muttered, wondering how long it would take her to repair his ship and free them both of this frigid planet. She could go where she wanted, but he hoped by the time they'd spent a little more time together she'd come round to his point of view. There was a place for her by his side, ruling the galaxy.

The late afternoon sun was trying to peek through the snow clouds, but shortly it would be dark and they would be free to make the journey to his hidden TIE.

"Stop," he heard behind him, followed by a click. The mind was frightened, that he could tell without concentrating or making eye contact, but the tone was determined.

Matthew Cuthbert had come out of trees by the pond.

A dead turkey, still in its feathers, now lay in the blood spattered snow at his feet, dropped to shift the hunting rifle into position. Matthew held it steadily at the black-clad stranger, certain with experience he'd hit the grim-repear-like-figure and not his unconscious guest, draped over the man's arms.

"Put her down."

Hands occupied with his kidnapped burden, Ben calculated if he could stop the bullet and didn't like the odds he or Rey could be hurt.

"She's mine, old man," Ben hissed from beneath his hood. A new thought came to mind. This earthling shouldn't be able to see him.

"You will let me pass, and will forget that you saw us," Ben ordered, adding a Force compulsion to it.

Matthew hefted the gun.

"I see you. I'm not letting you take another step with that girl.

Quickly closing his eyes, Ben reached out to the farmer. Inside the timid, solitary character was an untapped well of Force potential, repressed and hidden away. The black hole mind snapped shut against his prodding.

"Put her down now. Stay away from here."

Calculating odds, Ben grudgingly uncradled Rey's sleeping body and gently deposited her into the snow.

"I will return for her," he threatened. "This girl is mine."

"I reckon she'd have something to say about that," Matthew said softly, keeping his rifle trained on Ben's heart.

"She is not who she has told you she is," Ben warned.

"Who is," Matthew barked. "But I'll tell ya, she was acting like someone was huntin' her, and here you are, so I'm inclined to believe her."

Chewing his lips, Kylo released his hold on the Force, slamming back into his place in reality.

That infuriating old man probably spent his life thinking he was mad, when really he was Force-sensitive. Ben bent his body to a thoughtless task, mucking out the lowest level of the barn where the animals lived, as he raged internally about her unexpected protector.

"Did you try to abduct me?" Rey said furiously, her sudden, loud, presence having no impact on the cows but startling him into dropping his bucket.

"If you won't help me willingly," he threatened, composing himself, "I will expedite matters."

"And you were frightened off by a kindly old man with an unloaded hunting rifle," she retorted. "Face it, Ben, you're the Supreme Leader of the dung heap now."

"How did you think this would end, Rey? Did you think I'd leave you alone after one try when my own survival is at stake?" He stalked closer to her, his voice quiet. The tiny flower print on the dress, her hands on her aprons hip, the ribbon tying her little braid. She was beautiful in anything, anywhere. "Did you think I'd abandoned my plans for the galaxy because you don't feel like helping me? You make me your enemy over and over, Rey, when we could be so much more working together."

For a moment Rey thought he was going to bend down and kiss her, but while his eyes were fixed on her mouth, he didn't touch her.

"You smell like shit, Solo," she hissed, both relieved and annoyed about his distance.

"I'm coming for you," he warned. "And we're leaving this place."

But Rey was already gone. He loomed over empty space, threatening nothing.

Seething with the urge to blow a hole through the side of the Blythe's barn, Ben picked up the fork and tossed another clump into the bucket.

He would try again.

She would come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben have settled into their lives in Avonlea. Now their attention can turn to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone sitting in the first three rows may get wet

Rey sat on the end of her bed, pulling the pale yellow cotton warp counterpane down with her bum so that it began to descend off her pillow and towards her. The low wooden footboard dug into her thighs, but she didn't have the energy to care.

"Help?" she asked groggily, lifting clumsy fingers to pluck at the tiny shell button at her neck. The soft linen collar felt like a noose against her swollen glands.

Kylo sat in the rocking chair next to her bed. The decorative seat caning would have been buckling under his weight if he'd really been there. He twisted a stray piece of the fringe from her scrapwork reading afghan around his finger, watching the tip turn colour. Strange, what he could interact with on Rey's side and what ignored his presence.

"Can threaten me tomorrow," she pleaded weakly. "Don't want to sleep inna corset. Just be useful for once."

"Where are your people?"

"Out at the church for a dinner."

"What if I catch what you have," he said wryly. "I doubt we have any immunity to diseases here."

"Fine," Rey said, slumping further, struggling to get fully on the bed and looking pained. "Then go away."

Heaving a dramatic sigh entirely for her benefit, he stood up and wiped his sweaty palms on the back of his work pants. He was fairly certain she just had the start of a cold, a routine thing on this planet, no matter how poorly she seemed to be dealing with it.

"Fine, but if I die from whatever you've got I'll become a Force ghost and haunt you until the end of your days," he teased, trying to break some of the tension he felt.

Rey wasn't feeling tension. She was mostly asleep.

"You know," he muttered under his breath, "I always assumed if I got to take your clothes off you'd be a little more enthusiastic."

"Still grateful," she slurred unexpectedly into the bed.

He lit the bedside oil lamp, a new skill, against the fading January light, and examined her garments. Dark brows furrowed. There were layers upon layers of clothes, all of them with sinisterly small, delicate buttons. There on the back of her heavy skirts was one large looking button, the same shade of grey as the wool around it. It seemed like a friendly beacon to start with. He undid it, noticing below it were a series of large hook and eyes.

"For the love of..." he trailed, his large fingers not accustomed to handling such fine tasks. He placed his hand cautiously on Rey's waist to see if he could shimmy the skirt off over her hips and recoiled at the hard shell he felt under the fabric.

"What is this torture?" he said, offended. "Are you being punished for something?" He found the edges of the device on her back and hips.

"Corset," she said dreamily. "Can get away without it some days but not Sundays. Off please."

He pushed around at the fabric ensconcing her, but couldn't see a faster way there than removing every layer.

Kneeling before her, he leaned on the creaky bed. She opened her eyes, flushed and feverish.

"Hello," she smiled.

"Hello," he grumbled, tilting her neck up to try to release the lace noose. Ben's strong hands around her throat should have inspired fear, he believed, at least at some base level, but Rey relaxed into his touch. Her skin was hot. He fumbled at the shell button, feeling it crush and break under his fingers.

"Damn."

Taking a deep breath, he decided to try another method. He touched one finger to the next button, keeping his breathing even. The button gracefully slipped out of its linen buttonhole. Twenty more times Ben focused the Force to free Rey from her shirtwaist, until a bead of sweat formed on his temple.

He found more of the damned things on her sleeves, but after that could tug the garment free. Another linen layer appeared below. He untied the white ribbons at her waist and neck, and pulled the combination corset cover and petticoat off.

There was the torture device. It had simple fabric straps that went over her shoulders, ribbons dangling down attaching her tall black stockings, and the back had crossed ties that cinched what shouldn't have needed to be altered.

"Why did they do this to you," he asked, unsure if she was still awake. He started untying the laces.

"Cause I'm a woman," she griped.

Yes, he was very much aware of that fact at the moment, trying not to let his hands brush against where her firm breasts met the corset fabric.

It was no secret Ben and Rey were attracted to each other, most especially no secret to each other. Ben found it odd, however, that only a few weeks on this planet had made him forget that he had seen Rey always in body hugging wrapped clothing. Now seeing her in anything less than full planetary kit, detaching her thick woollen stockings, made his mouth go dry.

He stripped the corset off, and instead of throwing it in the fire where it belonged, he stacked it neatly on her chair with her other garments.

She breathed deeply, and sighed while he rolled off the stockings and bared her supple legs. The taste of blood began to rise in his tongue, crushed between his teeth as his fingers glided down skin with the wool. In the back of his mind he was pretty sure she could sleep comfortably now, and he should go, but he told himself she'd rest better if he finished.

"Last buttons," she whispered, bringing a hand onto her thigh, weakly pulling on the fabric of her drawers.

Sucking at his lips, Ben saw that what he'd though was the skirt of her thin chemise was fastened up the thighs to make thick shorts. Saying a prayer to the planet's god he'd just learned about recently, Ben carefully reached between Rey's thighs and undid the buttons.

He could smell her warm, personal scent, feel the heat of where the fabric had been pressed between her legs.

And it was past time he left.

He helped Rey under the covers. She rolled towards the lamp, and he was treated to a full view of her nipples and the shadowy form of her breasts through the linen chemise. He hastily pulled the covers up to her chin. Smoothing down quilts, settling the counterpane, he raised his hand one more time. Her forehead was warm against the back of his palm, and then his lips, but not terribly so. Her head would clear with the sleep that was separating them.

A sense of loss brought back into full awareness his own space, but the inconvenience in his trousers remained the same.

If he concentrated just right, he could keep a finger of his mind with hers throughout the night. Picking up his whittling knife off his single wooden shelf of possessions in the loft room, he gave it a few strokes with the whetstone. Gleaming wickedly now, he put it to the neck of the chess piece he was mid-way done carving. One wrong move in his large, strong hands, and the unforgiving queen would either break apart, or cost him his thumb.

Every move had to be just right.

  
xxx

  
Rey raised her eyes without raising her head away from the sheet hem she was repairing, peering up through her lashes. He was leaning against the kitchen wall eating a wrinkly winter apple, saying nothing. The Cuthberts were asleep, the house quiet. Ben's lurking visits were becoming routine.

The silence stretched, just occasional pops and crackles in the hearth.

Rey heard him chew and swallow.

She stabbed the fabric.

Neither spoke.

"Ben, would like me to sew on your shirt button?" she asked with lethal politeness. A gap was visible, the fabric stretched over his chest where a button wasn't doing its duty.

He raised an eyebrow, then glanced down.

"Does get drafty," he shrugged. "I hate shirts with buttons."

"Do you still have it?"

Rey put down her sewing and pulled a fresh needle from the bristling tomato. Threading the tiny eye with practiced skill and white cotton thread, she let a length unspool before she snapped it off.

Mouth set in concentration, Ben had two large fingers in his pocket, fishing around for the little shirt button. He held it on his palm for Rey, curving his hand slightly back like he was feeding a horse and didn't want to be nipped. She took the button just as carefully, her fingertips barely touching his skin.

Regretting offering, regretting communicating civilly to him, regretting existing, Rey stepped into his personal space. The blank spot on the shirt was high enough she'd have to reach up to his broad chest. She took the fabric in one hand, and positioned the button. Heat radiated from him, warming her fingers. She was surrounded by the smell of him, his breathing fast and heavy.

Nothing could tempt Ben to miss a second of the show, and he stared openly at her face and body while she worked.

Rey was creating a mess between her legs, and grew concerned that he could tell.

"I can't do this," she said, backing away. "Take your shirt off and go stand over there." Ben looked at the corner she pointed at and then back at her with a smirk. He handed her what was left of his apple, and began to remove his clothes.

Rey now didn't know what was worse. Sewing the button with his shirt on had been sweet torture, but now she watched with a mouth like sand as he pulled off his jacket, lowered his suspenders, and methodically unbuttoned the rest of his shirt. He shrugged out of the garment, revealing the bounty of scars she'd given him.

Desperate for something in her mouth, Rey took a bite of Ben's apple. The juice eased her parched tongue, but drew his attention to her lips. He looked down at her through his tangle of black hair, naked to the waist. She gave him back his apple.

The button.

Get the damned button on.

Rey made quick work of it, cheeks scarlet. The shirt was warm and smelled of Ben. When she peeked up at him his gaze was still steady on her, but he was finishing up the fruit. His lips moved over it, sucking up the pulpy wetness, scraping his teeth into the flesh.

"Oh," she gasped softly, unable to stop the sound. He raised an eyebrow.

"Your shirt is done," Rey blurted, handing it back. "Get dressed then get out."

A speculative look crossed Ben's face.

"What are you doing?" Rey asked sharply as he stepped into her space, her skirts surrounding and hiding his legs. He threw the apple core in the fire. It hissed as the remaining juice boiled and the seeds cracked. His fingers were still a little sticky as they came to rest lightly along her neck.

Meeting her eyes, Ben answered calmly.

"I'm going to kiss you," he said, touching the pad of a finger to the hollow under her ear, "here."

"Oh."

Ben's lips were damp against her skin, his hair tickling her face in a dozen places, his shoulders so close to bowling her over she had to brace herself on them with her hands.

"Things could have been different, Rey," he said softly, trailing kisses along her neck. "But I'll find you." He suddenly sucked hard enough to break blood vessels, making her gasp sharply. "And when I do you're coming with me, fixing my ship, and leaving this planet."

Rey shut down the bond, cold air rushing to fill the space Ben had occupied in their strange Force bond manner. He was manipulating her. Taunting her. Making her feel like prey in a lace-trimmed floral apron.

It was time Ben Solo knew his place.

She was the hunter.

  
xxx

  
Leisure time had always been rare, but Rey found the stretch of hours when the Cuthberts were at church especially sweet. Insistent for her safety that she remain at Green Gables, and unable to break old habits, Marilla had left her little to do but rest.

A respectable sized roast was in the well-banked wood stove, potatoes were peeled and in their pot of water, dessert and bread cooling on the work table beside the polished good silver and sharply pressed napkins. Rev Allan and his wife were expected guests for Sunday dinner, as the party of secret keepers felt they'd be useful allies. Surely the pastor would have heard if sinister folk had been seen in Avonlea, hunting escaped factory slaves.

Pulling the metal bath tub in from the laundry, Rey set about to make a good impression with the popular couple. She heated water, careful not to upset Marilla's preparations, until steam filled the warm kitchen. It was good that Rey was encouraged to eat well at the Cuthbert's table, else being surrounded by the scents of the herbed melting animal fat, the sweetness of a blueberry preserve pie, the tang of fresh bread, would have been impossible temptation while she waited. Winter was seen as a season of deprivation here, but cellars like Marilla's, lined deeply on all sides with carefully saved and preserved fruits and vegetables, made it a luxurious feast for Rey.

"Too hot," she murmured, trailing her fingers through the water. Carefully closing the kitchen curtains, she took off her clothes and put them neatly on the bench. Even in just a towel she was warm enough now, Jakku-like heat seeping into her bones. Pin by pin she took down her hair from the simple style Rachel Lynde had insisted she learn, rubbing tender spots where she'd fumbled the sharp bits of metal into her scalp.

Not wanting to delay longer, she eased herself into the scalding, sheet lined tub. It was still too hot, her body not adjusting quickly enough to the discomfort. She'd have to get out and wait. It was strange to be naked in such a public space, the door only feet away, but-

Footsteps in the snow.

Rey's head shot up, alert to the unwelcome noise. She summoned her lightsaber from its customary hiding spot in her skirt pocket, resting it in easy reach on the bench. Her skin was on fire, but as she heard the sound of someone heavy on the wooden porch steps, she knew she'd have to remain silent and still to avoid detection.

The door shot open, the unmistakable presence in her mind growing with proximity.

Adrenaline coursing, Rey swept up her igniting lightsaber as she rose in a challenge-ready pose. Her fierce war cry didn't have nearly the effect in throwing off Ben's balance as the unexpected sight of her bare, glistening body. She did nothing for modesty, focused on survival.

He took a deep breath, another mistake. The smell of the room made his mouth water and his tongue ache.

There was something he'd intended to say when he finally came to her in person and revealed that he knew where she had been hiding. A speech of sorts. Threats to aid him in the repair of his ship and to accompany him off world.

His mind was blank.

The glow of her weapon reflected in shimmers off the curves of her compact breasts, abdomen, hips, thighs. Words had evaporated, only hunger remained. She smelled of summer herbs and milk, soap most likely, blending into the rich cloud of cooking and baking.

Rey watched him stare at her, cautiously allowing her eyes to leave his empty hands to roam about the snow-dusted hair, cold-pink cheeks and nose. He'd walked a fair distance to reach her, his heavy overcoat and gear damp.

Her skin was in agony in the hot water. She quickly stepped out, her movement startling Ben into action. His lightsaber flared to life, striking out at her. Rey blocked him, but in the little room he was at her in two steps. Closing in on her, she couldn't read his expression. He crushed his lightsaber against hers, like he had at the cliff their first skirmish, bending her backwards. The tub rim pressed into the back of her legs. She was losing her battle with gravity, and Ben gave a hard shove.

Flailing, Rey dropped her lightsaber on the floor. She flung her hands out behind her as she fell. Catching the opposite edge of the bath, her torso was exposed, her backside dipping once into the painful heat. Rey knew if she let go of her white knuckle grip or even shifted her hands much, she'd plunge into the bath.

This was only going to end two ways:

One, she'd be forced to fall into the water. It would be painful, she could be momentarily blinded, and she'd be defenceless.

Two, the useless hulk of an assailant help her up.

A splash of shocking cold on her stomach derailed her assessment, flinging her eyes open.

Ben still stood between her legs, bent slightly over her. Another lump of snow melted from his hair, dropping onto her overheated skin. She gasped.

Slowly deactivating and pocketing his weapon, removing his gloves, he traced swirls in the cold water drops on her belly. His fingers were freezing, Rey's nipples hardening in response.

Intentions left out in the cold, Ben dipped his hand in the bath and hissed.

"No wonder," he said so softly it barely broke the silence, pulling his fingers out promptly, "you'd rather present yourself to me nethers first, tits out, then go for a swim in that cauldron."

Rey's arms were beginning to quiver with the effort of holding her tummy-up bridge position.

"Help me," she whispered.

"Help you?" he questioned back, placing frigid hands on her hips and drawing them higher. "When my view is so appetizing?"

"Find a way to be useful," she breathed.

Gracefully he fell to his knees, pulling her towards him. The scalded flesh of her thighs burned against his wind-bitten cheeks, bits of ice trapped in his stubble leaving cold streaks as they melted. In the midst of the delicious scents in the room, an earthier one joined them.

Temptation a lost cause, Ben let his mouth have its fill. The first plunge of his tongue into her slick labia left him moaning. She was soft, dripping, and her skin almost painfully hot against his lips. Feasting with abandon, Rey's quiet cries of pleasure helped ease his hunger.

"I can't hold on," she struggled out, breathless. Ben flicked his eyes along her body to her face. A small gesture with one of his fingers, all of which were still squeezing into her hips, and he used the Force to support her weight. While she appeared to hover, she could finally let go.

First taste or last supper, nothing was going to interrupt this meal.

Still in too awkward a position to touch him properly, Rey's let her hands tangle in her hair, stroke her breasts, touch at her lips, swelling from biting back sounds.

"Let it happen," he demanded sharply. "Let me hear you." He cupped his tongue around her clitoris, sucking rhythmically, letting her fuck his mouth with the little bud.

"Just don't stop," she ordered, the slight growl in her tone crinkling the corners of his eyes for a rare hint of a smile. As if he could stop. The feel of her wrapped around him, the vibrancy of her body in true flesh and body against his, the fill of her flavour in his mouth. Nothing else would be acceptable from now on. They must be together. She would surely see that.

From the table he reached a carefully pressed and neatly folded cloth napkin. Pulling out his agonized cock, he kept his other hand holding Rey firmly to his mouth. His movements becoming harder, the suction increasing, Rey's slick began to dribble down his chin. A swipe at the moisture with his fingers, and he had them wrapped around his penis. Her lubrication on his skin, her increasingly loud pleasure sounds, the buck of her into his face, made it a short amount of effort before he was spilling into the napkin.

It was difficult to resist scooping the thick semen up with his fingers and rubbing it inside of her, but he made do with just his clean bare fingers. He slipped one and then two under where his tongue made her writhe, the bumps of his callouses sliding against his lips and chin as they worked.

Laser focused on making Rey fall apart, Ben took his hand out of her to scoop fresh snow from off the top of his boot. He knelt in a puddle of his own making from thawed snow he'd tracked in, his undone trousers soaking it up, but there was enough snow left to press into her. With his other hand he reached into the tub and splashed hot water onto her breasts and body.

The heat against her skin and cold snow inside of her, combined with a bear-like growl of enthusiasm from Ben, pushed her into a helpless, wailing orgasm. His fingers pounded in unrelentingly, his mouth cleaning what she was produced, until she contorted up to push his head away, overwhelmed.

Ben fell back onto his bum, hair sticking up in damp tousles, face coated and red, large wet patches on his clothes. His eyes latched onto the sharp rise and fall of Rey's thin chest. It was all she could do to breathe.

"Is this why you've been hunting me," Rey mocked, her voice tight.

She plunged into the hot water with a shriek. Ben scrambled up while she was disoriented by the removal of his support. He awkwardly slipped and slid across the slick painted floor, swinging by the table. Throwing open the door, he dove back out into the snow, treasure in hand.

With an animal pace he tried to put as much distance as possible between his electrified, shivering body, and fragrant temptation. Once he had reached a field boundary made up of densely planted evergreens, he took a handful of snow and cleaned Rey's cum from his cheeks and chin.

This couldn't have gone less to plan. He ate his purloined buttertart, sulking, exultant, wondering if Rey had made it herself. The inside was soft, it hadn't set yet, and the hot mixture of butter and brown sugar flooded his overworked mouth in a now-familiar manner.

Back in Green Gables, Rey went on autopilot cleaning her body, cleaning the floor Ben's boots had besmirched, tidying up the tub and linens. She dressed herself with absent-minded but precision neatness. Fastening a borrowed cameo at the high-necked lace collar of her throat, she looked like a lady.

All the correctness and fashionable modesty couldn't erase the continuing drip of fluid from her overwrought nethers, the sparks and shudders that made her muscles spasm when she suddenly remembered what had just occurred.

Ben.

That couldn't have been his intention in invading Green Gables. Weeks of threats, and their first face-to-face (face-to-bits, she thought with a blush) interaction was of an intimate nature? Where were the demands he fix his ship, the arrogance, the presumed superiority of his position?

Distant sleigh bells echoing down the lane brought her back. Laying out the dining room table, Rey put her hands in something gooey.

One of Marilla's good linen napkins was full of semen, and it was all over her fingers.

The door opened with a rush of anxious voices.

"Rey, are you alright? There are men's foot prints outside the house, right up to the kitchen door."

Taking a calming breath, Rey met Marilla and the Allan's in the front hall, hands behind her back.

"Someone came to door while I was having a bath, but they left straight away," she half-lied. "I'm fine, just a bit shaken."

"Rey, how do you do," Rev Allan said with a genuine smile, extending his hand. Rey flashed him a dazzling smile.

"One moment," she said with false urgency, "I hear the potatoes boiling over." She fled the room to the empty kitchen, knowing she had only until Marilla had removed her winter gear.

Rey flung the sinful napkin into the floor scrubbing bucket, grumbling as it sunk beneath the dirty water she'd yet to dump. She worked the pump, frigid water gushing out to numb her fingers while she cleaned them.

"I bet Anne never gets into scrapes like this."

She dried her hands on her clean apron, examining the table.

"Bastard stole one of my buttertarts!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Many of Ben's dreams began with him standing naked with an erection in front of Rey, fantasies and nightmares alike. He wasn't yet certain what kind of living dream he was in, but he felt about as powerless to change the direction it was going as when he was sleeping."

Ben took a moment to centre and ground himself in the bustling entrance hall before accepting the hand of the pink-cheeked young woman before him.

He didn't want to be here, but he'd come by choice, by careful plan, and with determination.

"Ask me?" she said, peering up at him hopefully. He took in her glossy blonde upsweep, a wine-red gown tightly cinching her hourglass waist, small bold hands that had reached out for his.

Pulling the local dance moves from the minds of a group of young men he'd met at the general store that morning, Ben had tested them out in front of the cows that afternoon. It wasn't a difficult set of dances, and his martial agility and strength made it a quick study. The cows had made no complaints, though the chickens hadn't be fans of the stomping.

If this didn't bring Rey straight to him he'd be very much surprised.

Escorting his partner to the Carmody hotel's candlelit ballroom, he turned his satisfied smirk into a pleasant grin for the girl. A quick scan of her mind revealed she liked his figure, wanted to touch his biceps, and was curious about his facial scars. She had come with a group of fellow maids from one of the beachside mansions rented out to wealthy American businessmen.

Probing deeper, he let the eddies of guilt float away. She was just here for a good time. He could give her that.

He saw another couple swing by, the man with his head bent to his partner's ear whispering. She was blushing, pleased. Probing, Ben stole the words from the man's mind and repeated the action with his dance partner. Something about moonlight and roses and beauty.

Nonsense.

As if that's what enticed him. Not when there was a woman who could kick his ass and shake him to the core, poised with the internal flame of an ancient goddess. That said, she would look enchanting in the moonlight. Rey was no rose, though. Ben had been reading instructive botany books from John Blythe's simple library, and Rey was an autumn joy sedum. Beautiful in every season, unkillable, growing in the harshest settings. He'd carefully torn the plant's painted watercolour insert out of the old book and pinned it to the wall of his sparse accommodations.

Hopefully his effort tonight would lead him one step closer to bringing Rey back to his quarters.

Thinking of the way Rey had fallen apart under him in the kitchen, he let his lips brush the perfumed skin under the ear of his dance partner.

"What's your name?" he murmured, feigning ignorance.

"Emma," she breathed, tightening her grip on him. Her eyes closed, enjoying following his lead. "Tell me yours and I'll fill it in every line of my dance card."

On their second spin around the polished wood floor, her hand smoothing his shirt sleeves appreciatively, his creeping around her waist to bring her in closer, he caught the scent of something familiar but off.

It was the mental equivalent of a burnt spice cake: the delicious aromas and flavours there but mixed with bitter ashes.

Rey was fuming.

Visible to him alone, she stood in her nightdress and shawl just inside the door. Goosebumps prickled her skin as perspiration slicked his. He'd woken her up.

Ben suddenly lifted his partner on a swinging move, her giggles setting Rey's teeth on edge.

"Ben!" the young woman squealed.

_What's all this?_

_This is Emma._

_Why have you called me to see your... flirtation?_

_I met a young man in the store today named Charlie Sloan. He had a fascinating tale he was sharing with anyone who would listen about the beautiful stranger living at Green Gables._

Rey rolled her eyes.

The boy had come looking to borrow a tool from Matthew and found her in the drive shed instead. Skirt rucked up through her legs and tied around her hips to gird her loins while she hung off the seat of a massive plow. A generation of bouncing and jostling over the fields had broken and worn down much of the area where Matthew had to sit and maneuver for days at a time. She could fix it. Then she'd get to replacing the hinges on the white enamel syrup collection buckets.

A brief exchange, while the young farmer had stared openly at her long, stockinged legs, was all it had taken for him to develop a powerful crush.

_Don't you know how it works here, Rey? A man takes what he wants, and the Sloan boy wants you. If you heard what he was thinking, you'd have supported me crushing the life out of hi-_

_Your jealousy is ugly, Ben, and your behaviour tonight is childish. Enjoy your time with Emma, she's very pretty._

The scavenger disappeared, revenge on her mind.

  
xxx

  
Safely surrounded by tall firs, with no expectation of interruption, Rey tickled at the connection in her mind. She shifted in her warm cloak, waiting for him to appear.

He looked up swiftly from the hay bale he reclined on, a thin knife paused mid-curl against a small piece of wood. Already assessing her mood and mindset, Rey knew she's have only moments to act before his guard was fully up.

She threw out both mittened hands, surrounding Kylo's breathless body with a wall of Force energy and slamming him into the Michigan logging wheel hung for decoration on the wall behind him. Stalking into the warm barn, she pried the carving knife from his fingers and raised it to his throat. His eyes were livid, his mouth tight with concentration as he pushed against her binds.

"You will remember that I am not some soft Earth woman, some tame Avonlea flower. I am not Diana Berry or Jane Andrews. You will remember this, sir, when you are next tempted to treat me like I'm going to fall into your arms just because you look at another woman. You will stay away from Charlie Sloan. He will realize that I am not for him without your threats."

She traced the knife's cold blade down his scar.

"I have no desire to hurt you, Ben, but I will not tolerate being manipulated."

She felt her grip on him weakening under pressure, and prepared for his reaction.

"Did you think I didn't know you've been at Green Gables for weeks now?" he spat. "I could have done worse than show up for a friendly visit on a Sunday morni-"

Bringing sleep down on his mind like an avalanche, she made a quick decision.

This was going to need to be an in person discussion. Sacrifices of dignity would need to be made for the greater good.

When he awoke, Ben was shocked to find Rey corporeally present in John Blythe's softly lit barn. It was impossible to forget how lovely she was, but somehow seeing her in person knocked the wind out of him every time.

"Rey, this seems-" he searched his vocabulary for something local, culturally anchored by her dress and hair style, "indecorous."

She raised an eyebrow but didn't stop binding his hands crucifixion-style to the great wheel affixed to the wall.

He could use the Force to try to break free, and he was fairly certain his mastery would outweigh her enthusiastic beginner's luck, but his scars reminded him that he'd been wrong before.

"You used that poor girl as bait," she said calmly, composed. "Don't be so surprised when I tug at the line."

"And what do you call Charlie Sloan then," he spat, his jealousy of the puppy-like youth surfacing.

"I call him a child I have met by chance and think of him no more," she said firmly. "His crush is none of my business and none of yours. Also, you will remember that outside the narrow confines of this planet, men and women and others socialize freely without accusations of impropriety."

"Looks like we've both developed a new vocabulary," Kylo sighed, hopelessly turned on by the confident fierceness of his enemy-turned-confidant-turned-enemy.

"You will leave Charlie Sloan alone," Rey threatened, tightening the leather binding around his ankle. He could see the top of her head as she crouched before him, her mouth so achingly close, her heart a galaxy away.

Standing back to admire her work, the man splayed before her, she undid the top button of her forest green high-necked gown to let the winter night air cool her.

"Now, Kylo Ren," Rey said, hovering her hand over his head, probing his defences, "where in Avonlea have you hidden your ship?"

"Do you want me to behave like Kylo Ren?" he asked, true anger creeping into his voice.

"I want to destroy your ship," she said bluntly. "Then you can stop asking me to repair it."

"You're wasting your time," he growled. "I can keep you out."

"Can you?" Rey asked absently, backing away. She unbuttoned the rest of her dress and slipped it up over her head. It was carefully placed on a crate, followed by her corset cover and petticoats. Left in her structured corset, knickers and stockings, she smiled up at Ben.

"You think flashing a bit of ankle will make me willing to lose my chance to get out of here?" he asked skeptically. In truth he was already suffering from an embarrassing erection.

"Ankle would hardly excite such a well-trained Jedi," she explained, easing herself back onto the covered crate. Ben watched in horror as she spread her thighs, revealing the damp linens that covered her nethers.

"I'm not a Jed- What- What exactly is your goal here," he stuttered. "That if you give me a show, I'll tell you out of gratitude?"

"No, Ben," she said evenly, "you tell me where your ship is and I'll let you fuck my mouth. Otherwise you watch, but you can't touch."

If he thought she was joking it became very obvious as she sunk two fingers into her visibly wet core that she was serious. There was already no more room in his pants to grow, everything was filled by his painful cock. Unable to look away he pulled at his rope-bound limbs, pressed at the Force bindings while her face flushed and she added another finger.

"Tell me where your ship is hidden, Ben," she breathed while she worked. "Do you remember how it felt to finish while it was your fingers inside me? It could be you right now."

Rey bit her lip, examining her captive. He was a vision of dangerous lust, restrained but not tamed, eyes promising revenge upon her. Allowing herself to remember his tongue, his fingers, she gazed at her agitated prey. Another wave of lubrication dripped from her, the scent catching in the air. She used the distraction to push at his mind again, with no luck.

"I'm going to finish soon, Ben," she said sweetly, "and I could open your poor trousers, and suck you dry while I do it. It's all up to you."

"Fuck you, Rey," he said angrily, growing red.

"I am fucking me," she gasped, knowing she was so close. Tugging at the ribbons on her corset she maneuvered a hand in to massage her breast. Ben could see the top swell of her nipple. "But don't you wish I was fucking you?"

"I'm not telling you," he ground out, seeing the warning signs of her orgasm emerge on her beautiful face.

"You must hurt, Ben," Rey challenged. Her tone changed sharply as she came around her fingers, thighs twitching. "Oh Ben," she taunted, "oh Ben this feels so good. So wet, so hot. Don't you wish there was something wet and hot that could wrap around your cock right now? Just say the words."

He felt pressure in his mind again, a feverish unsubtle shove as she finished hard, her knees rising in, her abdomen muscles clenching.

"Shame," Rey whispered, running her hands along her blissed out body as it relaxed. "When I brought you to the edge, I'd let you finish anywhere you wanted. I've heard men like that. You could cum in here," she traced fingers down her sternum into her breasts, "or here" she stroked her thigh and backside, "or I would just swallow down every drop of you."

"I'm not going to tell you," he shouted, thrashing with rage on the giant logging wheel, agony in his trousers.

"You will," she said simply, sitting up and brushing stray bits of hay off of her. She got dressed quickly, moving towards him, and finished the last button inches from him. "Thanks for the show, Ben," she said wickedly. Pressing her finger to his lips in a farewell kiss, she turned on her heel and walked out into the snowy barnyard.

Rey walked for fifteen or so minutes, crossing fields deep with snow towards Green Gables, before she closed her eyes and dissolved the Force ties restraining him.

She expected that he would tend to his aching penis.

She expected that he would be full of rage and go home.

She did not expect Ben to immediately rip free of his ropes and tear after her. With his long legs and predatory anger he was closing the distance at an incredible speed. Rey began to run in her long skirts, but Ben was faster in his black woollens and sensible boots. She hadn't even cleared the Haunted Woods when she could hear him crashing through the brush.

Lupine grace and focus drew closer, scarlet rage fuelling inexhaustible energy.

Rey was fleet of foot, but nothing would balance the ground-eating pace he could maintain.

It was only a matter of time before she felt a strong arm reach around her waist and throw her onto a large glacial-deposit field boulder. She bounced hard on the rock, face scraping the stone.

"Manipulative hypocrite," Ben hissed, pressing her body over the rock and pulling up the back of her skirts and separating her drawers. It was freezing, the sting of cold burning Rey's exposed flesh.

"You deserve it," she snapped. "Tell me where your ship is and I'll let you have it all."

"No," he said simply, tugging out his cock. The run had diminished his erection, but as he caught his breath it returned. Slamming his hips to her, he let his penis rub against her legs.

"I won't take that tight little cunt today," he said, watching the way his penis disappeared between her legs as he used her labia and her inner thighs for friction. "It doesn't belong to me yet."

Rey groaned, the broad tip of him bashing into her over-sensitive clitoris as he thrust lengthwise against her.

"How dare you tie me up," he growled, smashing his hips into her backside. "How dare you attempt to extort such information from me using your sex."

Exposed all around in the frigid air, sunrise glistening on the snow, Rey watched her breath steam in front of her. In the stillness she could hear as well as feel the thwack of his testicles against her backside. He squeezed her thighs tighter around him, using the slick of her own orgasm, his hands biting into her hips. The pace was brutal, her pelvis crashing into the field stone, but she found herself lost deeper and deeper in the pleasure of his body.

"Fuck me properly, Ben," she demanded, aching for the thrusts between her thighs to soothe the need inside her.

"No," he spat, moving a hand to her shoulder to bend her over further. "This isn't how you fuck a virgin."

"You're a virgin too," she retorted, trying anything to relieve pressure. "And what if this is how I want you?" Her gloved fingers gripped the stone for balance. He had made no effort to touch her swollen clitoris.

"Rey," he gasped. Rey felt a flood of hot semen against her thighs, spraying her petticoats. His rasping breaths were loud in her ear, his body warming hers. "Goddammit, Rey," he said hoarsely.

She pushed hard into his mind, and grabbed what she wanted while his brain soared on chemicals, in and out before he noticed.

_White Sands_. His ship had come down and crashed in White Sands. She could see it, find it. Now she just needed to find a way there.

And to make sure she was the one who did the laundry this week.

  
xxx

  
Rey closed her door for the night, proud of how she could balance the candle in one hand, the heavy shawl over her nightgown on her shoulders and elbows, and her book.

She smelled his world before she saw him. Fragrant unfamiliar spices, heady and mouthwatering, filled the small bedroom, as well as the now familiar scents of clean hay, warm barn, and fresh bread.

"Joining our picnic?" a sultry voice asked from the direction of where her closet should have been in the gabled room.

Ben was reclining on a pile of loose hay, his boots off and his stocking feet propped up on an old crate. He held up a beige crock, a brown glazed loop near the spout.

"Mr Blythe brought this down from the house. Said it was a very belated Chrysalis present on a cold night, or something. Don't know what hatched, but the people here just had some sort of holy day for it a couple months ago."

"What's inside?" Rey asked skeptically, almost dropping the jug when she found it hot to the touch. She eyed up Ben's languid pose, a sleeping barn cat tucked against his lap, receiving lazy strokes against her black fur.

"Spiced wine." He held up a cloth that contained most of a loaf of unsliced bread, butter dripping from it, and a small wheel of soft yellow cheese.

No one went hungry at Green Gables. The food was plain, but plentiful and well prepared. That didn't keep Rey's stomach from overtaking her brain, guiding her fingertips to the stream of melted butter, and bringing the drops to back her lips.

Avoiding Ben's unabashedly direct observation, she washed it down with a slug from the heavy bottle. The flavour tangled around her mouth, filling it with explosions of warmth and comfort. Her shoulder muscles eased, and at the last she tasted the sting of alcohol in the back of her tongue.

"Did you know," he mused, "that every time I smell fresh bread now I get hard as a rock thinking about the taste of you in my mouth?"

Flames shot through Rey's cheeks.

"Want to know what I want, Rey?" he rumbled, his voice raw. "I want you to take off that absurd garment, and I want you to come to my bed, and I want to hear you scream my name until you see the face of that God these village folk are obsessed with. And you know, Rey," he flicked his eyes to hers, burning stars in the dark, "I think you want that too."

Reminding herself to breathe, Rey clung to the candle holder with increasingly sweaty fingers. She could still feel he way he'd slid between her thighs days earlier.

Silence stretched before them. Silence from Rey's mouth, silence from Rey's mind, silence from Rey's heart. A ghost of a smirk drifted across Ben's features. He shifted the cat and stood up three paces away from her.

"I didn't finally come to Green Gables after knowing where you were for weeks just to tumble you in the bath and run. I had a speech planned, about it being your duty to help me repair my ship and going back to the Resistance. I'd come to offer you a deal to drop you off on my way back to the First Order. I even mostly meant it. But now, Rey, now I don't see myself letting you go so easily."

It was the way he said her name, like he was indulging in something forbidden, that finally rebooted Rey's brain.

"I'm not fixing anything," she said baldly. "I'm not going to be the means of restoring the Supreme Leader to his army. We can die of old age here, or you can kill me sooner, but you're not going anywhere."

"What do you see happening?" Ben asked calmly, like this was the response from her he'd anticipated. "Settle down with a nice Earth man and pretend for, at most, the next sixty years you're some pleasant, simple farmwife? These women can't work as mechanics or engineers, no one here can fly, you can't vote or own property." His voice grew more heated, some calm lost. "Do you think I'm going to stand by and let you marry some nerfherder who will make you pump out his babies until you die of complications of childbirth, or some preventable illness, just to spite me?"

Rey dropped her book and pointed at him, her shawl falling off one elbow.

"That's the real sticking point, isn't it, Ben Solo," she hissed. "It's not that I won't help you, it's that I could choose to be happy here and make a life with someone who isn't you."

His face and tone hardened.

"You didn't crawl off that garbage dump of a planet and wash off the stench of slavery just to end up a kitchen drudge to one of these ignorant earthlings."

Stepping closer, he forced her to look directly up at him.

"I will never allow the other half of my soul to shrivel up and die, unappreciated, bored, and lonely in this beautiful wasteland." He took her face firmly in one enormous hand, making her meet his eyes. "Only I know how the Force sings through you. Only I know how you make ships dance. Only I know how you can slice through men with a killer's grace." He was growling out his words now. They'd been practiced for just such a moment.

Ben took the candle from her hand and blew it out, hot wax spraying the hay as he threw it to the floor.

Rey knew his speech was unsettling and possessive, but just the same she felt guilty wetness between her thighs. Allowing him to put his free hand on the small of her back, allowing him to draw her against his broad chest, heat burning through his heavy off-white shirt and wool vest.

Tilting her face towards the roof beams, her throat exposed and vulnerable, he murmured into the skin there, "Only I can make your nights haunt your days. Only I know how you feel on the inside. Only I can make sure you drop to sleep every night, exhausted from how many times I've made you scream the dust off the rafters."

"Oh God," Rey whispered, feeling his lips move over her skin.

"Fix my ship," he whispered, placing an open mouth kiss under her jaw.

Rey whimpered at the sensation, but her answer was voiced firmly.

"No."

Ben eased his hips against hers. The soft fabric of her nightgown grew heavy with moisture.

"Then live with me here on this planet as my wife and I will make sure you want for nothing."

"No," Rey hissed, "I won't enter into any sort of servitude to you, even under the guise of marriage."

"As if you'd allow me to treat you as anything less than an empress. But women aren't free to enjoy their bodies here," he reminded her, sliding his hand from her back around to trace the line of her waist, and coming to rest on one breast. He thumbed her nipple through the fabric, soaking up her almost inaudible gasp. "Think another man here would bury his face between your thighs in the kitchen? Keep you so wet you can't think straight?"

"And your plan was what, if I don't fix your ship you'd make it your mission to entertain me in your bed until we die?"

"Yes," he breathed slowly across her cheek, finally taking her mouth with a demanding kiss. Spice and sweetness swirled on his tongue, and Rey feared its appeal.

"These fools expect to unwrap a naive virgin on their wedding night," Ben warned, rucking up Rey's nightgown and sliding a hand around her bare thigh. "You better run home to Green Gables with that perfect little hymen in tact if you want to catch an Avonlea man."

"Fuck you and fuck their invasive patriarchy," Rey panted, unbuttoning his vest and shirt with clumsy fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Are you saying you're going to let _me_ unwrap your trembling virgin body?" he taunted, dropping her nightgown skirt to help her pull off his top layers. "A man so vile you would die to keep stranded from civilization?"

"You know it's more than that," Rey said, bite in her tone, her short nails sinking into the skin of his bare chest. "Besides," she continued, loosening his trousers and sliding her hands inside, down the tight curve of his backside to guide them to the floor. "I believe I'm making more progress than you at the moment, if we're talking about undressing virgins."

In the flickering light of the slightly swaying lantern, hung from a hook in the overheard beam, Rey could admire every nook and cranny of Ben's physique. It reflected off his wild black hair, off the hard planes of muscle and the shimmery scars. If he was self-conscious at her unrepentant scrutiny, he didn't show it, but there, there in his hands, despite his bold words, she spotted a tremble.

Ben reached down and found the crock of mulled wine. His enormous finger was nearly too large for the clay loop. Naked, he tipped it back and drank deeply, then passed it to Rey.

"Decide now, Jedi," he said darkly, "because if you keep us here, you become mine."

"I don't accept that those are my only options," she said plainly, frowning. "Though of course you are free to surrender to me."

Irritated by the lack of gravity she gave his threats, he chewed his lips.

Many of Ben's dreams began with him standing naked with an erection in front of Rey, fantasies and nightmares alike. He wasn't yet certain what kind of living dream he was in, but he felt about as powerless to change the direction it was going as when he was sleeping.

Rey's composure in the face of his successful seduction was admirable but annoying. He had gone on theory and instinct when he'd brought her to the edge of sanity in her kitchen, but he was operating without the experience to know how to take the next step.

Ben closed his eyes, feeling the eddies of air around his naked body, and drew upon the dark side of the Force for strength. When he opened his eyes, he watched Rey's pensive expression shift to alarm.

"Proud Jedi," he said hoarsely, raising his hand. Around him, to her Force-sensitive vision, swirls of black smoke radiating power cloaked his warm fire-lit body like a shifting translucent hooded robe. He tilted his face down to hers, and she was reminded strongly of the fact that this wasn't just some Avonlea boy, this was the face of a beautiful villain. "You need to be reminded of your place. On a throne. Next to mine."

In a swift show of physical strength, Ben grasped her wrists and swept her to the hay-strewn floor. Caging in her body, he pinned her hands above her head with one of his. Fingers on the other hand poised at the collar of her nightgown, he met her wide eyes.

"Go back to Green Gables now," he ordered. "Or submit to me."

"No," she hissed, easing her hips up to rub against his thigh. "I exchange nothing for my body. I will promise nothing."

Tearing apart her nightgown with one hand, he lowered his mouth to the exposed flesh of her breasts to lick at her nipples.

"You will either fix my ship or you will be my wife on this planet," he demanded harshly.

"I will fuck you here and now, and then I will walk away," Rey countered angrily, struggling to free her hands so she could touch him. He pressed them harder into the wood planking.

"You're infuriating," he growled, kissing away her retort. Sinking his body between her legs felt glorious, the cradle of her thighs against his, the friction against his aching cock. He didn't need to check with his fingers to know she was soaked. He could smell it. He could feel the slide of it on his skin.

Having exacted no price from her, Ben plunged all the way into the unbroken channel she offered him. Rey cried out, expecting more preparation, but she didn't want him to stop. A low guttural sound slipped out of Ben's mouth, and the sense of dark Force about him thickened. In response Rey's skin felt electrified, a current of darkness feeding her lust.

"Take your monster, Rey," he said, not waiting for her to adjust before thrusting into her again. She moaned, finally breaking free of his grasp on her wrists. Burying her fingers in his hair she pulled sharply, like she was trying to pull him back up into her body whenever he teased to leave her.

"I'll break you," he threatened, watching the glide of his penis as it made its demands of her slim body and swelling labia. Fluids dripped freely down her perineum, onto the ruined nightgown.

Rey slapped him across the face.

"Don't mistake me for fragile," she ordered, twisting her torso to take him in deeper when his shock broke his rhythm. Regrouping, Ben scooped up viscous lubrication from their bodies and applied it liberally to her little pink clitoris while he pounded in below it.

"I'm going to wear you down," he warned, strength rising as he heard the wail building in Rey's chest. He fingered her into a swift, shuddering orgasm that took all of his concentration to ride out.

Giving her no rest he pulled his aching cock out with a thick squelch, and flipped her over. He gripped her backside in enormous hands, slamming back into her. Cheek pressed to the floor, Rey clawed at the hay.

"You will fix my ship and we will leave this place together, or you will go about your days here dripping with my cum." He set a punishing pace, knowing he couldn't hold on much longer. "If we stay you'll sew my shirts, cook my meals, clean my house, with my semen decorating your pretty cunt. I'll build you a little house, milk your damned cows, chop wood for your fire, eat you on the kitchen floor for breakfast, and fuck you on the table for dinner."

An overwhelmed breath shuddered through Rey, accompanying another powerful orgasm that clouded her vision and blocked her ears even to her own partially-stifled scream. Letting some of his weight fall onto her back, wrapping his body over hers, Ben lost control. Filling her completely, forcefully invading her womb, she wrung him out.

"You will never walk away from me," he whispered in her ear, cock and cum still deeply entrenched, "because you're going to be too wrecked to walk."

Rey continued to breath softly into the hay while he reached under her to splay a hand across her belly and pull her up tightly against him.

"Mine."

Fighting for composure, Rey closed her eyes. She tried to remember where he ended and she began, their minds and bodies confusingly enmeshed through the Force bond.

Ben bit gently into her shoulder, sucking in the pale skin. The pain sharpened Rey's faculties. Pressure began to close around Ben's throat as for the first time he felt what it was like to be Force-choked. Rey released him after only a moment.

"I am unbreakable. I was made for this. And this is mine," she spat, swatting his hand away and moving out of his range so his now flaccid penis slid out in rush of creamy white. She pushed him away and stood on colt-like legs, naked, an obscene mess on her thighs.

Ben stood to face her, close enough for her to feel the heat off his flushed, perspiring body. He stared her down, but she was unflinching, her face fierce. Reaching down for the wine, he took a long drink to soothe his dry throat, and then passed it to Rey. The sweetness helped fortify her limbs.

"So did it live up to your expectations?" he asked, trying not to sound as vulnerable for her answer as he felt. "Maybe a bit rougher than I anticipated, but felt... right."

"I read a line in one of Anne's school books, a play, reminds me of us: you and I are too wise to woo each other peaceably," she said, expression softening. "Probably not the kind of wooing he meant, but it felt right."

"Help me fix my ship, Rey."

"No," she said, her expression immediately closing back up.

He pulled a few pieces of hay from her hair. Chewing his lips, Ben decided to speak his fear.

"It's a coin flip for you now, Rey. You know this. Flip of a coin whether you get pregnant, another flip of the coin whether you survive. Will you make my body the weapon of your destruction?"

"If I could successfully stay away from you, Ben, I wouldn't be here right now," she snapped, wiping wine from her mouth with the back of her hand and returning the bottle. "Besides, First Order could have shot down my ship a dozen times. I told you, I'm willing to die here under any circumstances if it means depriving those bastards their Supreme Leader."

"And I'm just supposed to watch you die?" Ben said tightly, a crack forming on the clay jug under the pressure on his hand. The black barn cat started to coil around his ankles.

Closing the space, Rey went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. He melted into the kiss, their minds and bodies still sensitive.

"Yes, I'm prepared to make you watch me die. Good night, Ben," she said firmly, concentrating on breaking the Force bond visit and returning her consciousness, her spirit, some form of her body back to her bedroom at Green Gables.

The last thing she heard as the barn faded was the smash of crockery.

The first thing she heard as the lace curtains and hand knit counterpane appeared was a knock at her door, followed by Marilla's voice.

"Rey, I don't know what exactly I just heard from your room, but you're coming to church with us tomorrow morning. It sounds like you and whoever just climbed out your window could use a good dose of religion."

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the darkness of the barn where he slept alone, taking form in the bed beside her, Rey felt his black eyes snap open.
> 
> Betrayal.

Marilla behaved so normally on Sunday morning that Rey thought maybe she had mistaken the overheard shenanigans for a dream. Coaching Rey along as usual in her domestic chores, she waited until they were doing up the breakfast dishes together to broach the topic.

"I forget sometimes that you're a grown woman, Rey," Marilla said uncomfortably. "I'm used to having a little girl around Green Gables, not a lady. I was so quick to believe last night that you had some sort of sinful arrangement with a local man, though I didn't know how you would have met unless it was Jerry the hired man. But we know so little about you that it occurred to me that you could be married."

It wasn't a question, but Marilla clearly expected an answer. Rey carefully dried a cup, thinking quickly.

"At the factory I escaped from we didn't have formal marriages," she lied slowly. "But sometimes we would form partnerships like a marriage. I met a man there who asked me to be his, for lack of a better word, wife."

"I asked you to join me to rule the galaxy," Ben said bitterly, his sudden appearance near the stove noticeable only to Rey, "that's a little more than a typical marriage proposal."

She ignored him, and carried on with her guilt-ridden lie.

"He's found me here at Green Gables. He's working as a hired man in Avonlea and tracked me down. He came by to ask me to legally marry him, and to settle down with him."

"But you're hesitant?" Marilla asked, picking up the notes in Rey's tone.

"Ben worked directly for the factory master, and at times he could be... quite cruel."

She discreetly met his eyes for a moment, his expression challenging.

"I'm concerned he'll turn around and hand me right back over to the master the moment he has such power over me."

"Rey, no," he said quietly. "You know that even when I go back to my people I couldn't make you my prisoner."

"He came to Green Gables last night to persuade me to join him. I realize now that what was considered acceptable at the factory is not, um, moral behaviour. I'm sorry, Marilla, for putting you in that position."

The older woman made a disgruntled sound in the back of her throat.

"Well, child, we won't talk of that again. It sounds like you and this man ought to be properly married, though. Imagine Mrs Lynde found out, she'd be reading the banns herself."

They were silent a moment, just the soft clunking of dishes in the hot soapy water. If Rey listened very carefully she could hear the sound of cattle bumping around in the barn where Ben was working on the other side of the Force bond.

"It's not too late to get out of here, Rey," Ben said calmly, pushing up his toque with fingerless-glovesd knuckle . "You don't have to marry me. You could fix my ship and leave this planet and have your whole life back."

Rey's voice when she spoke was small, vulnerable.

"What's life actually like for unwed mothers in a place like this?"

Marilla squeezed the water out of the dishcloth with a white knuckle grip.

"Terrible enough that risky or no, you should march that boy down to Reverend Allan's today and ask to be married."

Rey shot a glance at Ben, who nodded calmly. Too calmly for someone who appeared to be getting what he wanted after being told no so vehemently the previous night. He faded away.

"Yes, I think he does," Rey answered, using her damp tea towel to wipe the inside of the coffee grinder.

"Do you think you might already be... in trouble?"

Rey shook her head, causing Marilla's severe feature to ease a little.

"Still, sooner rather than later. We'll talk to the reverend after church. Fetch a bottle of the raspberry cordial from the pantry before we go, it'll give you a reason to stay and talk with him."

The strange family made their way to the Avonlea church in time for the eleven o'clock service, Rey looking smart in Marilla's second best church dress and Anne's second warm winter cloak. Anne had been outfitted handsomely but practically for her time at Queen's, fortunately for Rey who wore many of her perfectly good things left behind.

Nervous as she was, Rey couldn't help enjoying the speed of the sleigh cutting through the snow, the wind on her face, the power of the pulling horses. It felt good to be out.

Matthew went to look after the horses, and Rey suspected he wouldn't join them in the whitewashed frame building until immediately before the service started. Marilla had finally convinced him that his winter coat was finally too shabby to repair or patch, and he had to replace it, but he dreaded the friendly locals feeling the need to comment on it to him.

Curiosity blooming at all the new faces, Rey slid into the Cuthbert pew, trying to guess at people she'd heard about in stories. Mrs Lynde gave a showy look of surprise, raising a pointed eyebrow at Marilla, who shrugged.

With the grace of a practiced observer, Rey adapted to the rhythm of the church. She stood when asked, sat when asked, greeted her neighbours when asked, self-reflected when asked, and sang when asked.

It took her nearly to the end of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" to really catch on to the tunes, but she enjoyed the voices around her. Mrs Lynde's voice was strong, a raven-haired teenage girl she suspected was Anne's bosom friend Diana had a sweet voice, and making her jump, a soft baritone behind her joined in mid-way through the morning.

"Think I'd make you do this alone?" he said gently into her mind.

Marilla, like most of the Avonlea folk, noticed the stranger at the back of the church immediately. She was the only one, though, who knew why his eyes were sharply focused on the back of Rey's head.

Handsome, she mused, but sinisterly so. Like Lucifer.

Reverend Allan preached in his easy, thoughtful manner on the prophet Elijah's despair at being the last of his kind. At retreating to isolation to await his death in hopeless despair, when there was work still to do. At rejecting the apprentice God had delivered him, until he was eventually driven back into service by renewed purpose.

"Do they know about Skywalker here?" Ben asked in her mind, perplexed.

"I don't think so," she thought, equally puzzled. "Coincidence, must be."

She shifted on the unforgiving wood pew, her tender nethers protesting. Chagrin trickled through their bond back to her.

"Next time I'll try to be more gentle," he thought.

"We don't seem capable of gentle."

"We can try."

"Gentle means admitting it's not the result of being overcome with lust. Gentle means admitting it's because we care for each other."

"I care," he thought simply.

Rey blew out a breath out loud, causing Matthew to jump.

"I know you do too," Ben continued in her head. "I won't make you say it."

"I am grudgingly agreeing to marry you. That's something," she offered.

"You don't have to," he reminded her. "You could fix my ship and be free."

"Or I could tear your ship apart bolt by screw, and walk away from you anyway," she snapped. "I'm not agreeing to marry you just because it's my only alternative to repairing your TIE, idiot. I thought you weren't going to make me say that I care for you?"

She felt him preen with the confirmation of her affection.

"So you've given up trying to destroy my ship?"

"Yes," she lied. It was still her intention, marriage or not, to make sure Ben was stranded on this primitive backwater planet.

After the service and a great deal of handshaking, Rey caught Ben's eye from where he lurked in the narthex, and nodded towards the pastor. Reverend Allan had a receiving line formed before him, Avonlea folks leaving well wishes and compliments as they exited.

Rey made sure she was last. The Cuthberts had agreed to wait for her. Their generosity had been extensive towards her, but this violation of their moral code had been met with a firm set of instructions on how to restore herself to social norms.

"Reverend, may I have an opportunity to speak to you in private regarding a hasty marriage?" she said softly, pressing the bottle of cordial into his hand. His eyes widened, his grip on her other hand tightening.

"Absolutely," he agreed. She followed him to his office, Ben bringing up the rear.

"Rey, I wasn't aware there was someone in your life who would be a candidate for husband. And a hasty marriage? I admit, I'm concerned."

Rev Allan removed his vestments and hung them neatly on a hook on the back of his office door. Leaning against a heavy, ornately carved wooden desk, he crossed his arms and surveyed them.

He shook his head.

"It looks like you've been caught, Rey."

Settling into a wingback chair next to his bookshelf, Rey could see the middle aged man was exhausted after the service. He eyed up the tall, dark spectre standing behind Rey, one hand coming down to rest possessively on her shoulder.

"This is Ben. We were partners before I fled the factory, and now that we're reunited we wish to be married as quickly as possible," Rey explained.

"Why the haste?" the pastor asked dryly, a knowing, tired twist to his expression.

Rey rested a hand to her flat, corseted belly, and gave him a significant look.

"As soon as possible, before people talk," she said, affected embarrassment and shame making her eyes fall to the faded carpet. Ben gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"This girl has no father, family or dowry," the reverend said firmly to Ben, "how to you intend to keep your bride? I believe you are John Blythe's new hired man?"

"I've been saving my wages some time now," Ben said, his deep voice surprising when first heard. "My goal is to rent a farm until we can buy it outright. Mr Blythe's son intends to study medicine, and won't likely keep the farm. The Cuthberts won't expect their daughter to keep and farm Green Gables. The Barry's have only daughters and they may wish to move away when they marry. None of the Lynde children appear to have an interest in Avonlea. There will be opportunities if Rey even wishes to stay in this area. We could go west."

"And you know what goes into running a farm, young man?"

"What I haven't learned from Mr Blythe, I've been studying in books."

Rey tried to hide that this was all new information to her.

"Have you really been studying books on farming in case we set up a home here?" she thought.

"Yes," he returned firmly. "I will look after you, Rey, I promise you that."

"Where will you live once you're married? I don't imagine the Cuthberts expect newlyweds in their house, especially when winter eases in a couple weeks and Anne can begin visiting home from school."

"If Rey can live rough with me in my barn quarters for a few months we'll be able to afford to rent a cottage in time to set up housekeeping and prepare for additions to the family," he said confidently.

"And you think this is enough, do you?" the reverend asked skeptically.

"It will be enough. I trust Ben," Rey reassured.

Agreeing to start announcing the banns the next week, the pastor showed them out and began his solitary, snowy walk to the manse.

Ben helped Rey into her coat, throwing her scarf around her neck and knotting it up for her.

"You look pretty in the clothes here," he said almost shyly. "Just in case you were wondering. Maybe it's all the colours and flowers."

Ben suspected seeing Rey in her typical chosen outfit of tights and cloth wraps really would seem scandalous now that he was accustomed to seeing her in long dresses and bulky undergarments.

"You look remarkably similar to the way you always do," she said, gesturing to his black suit, black vest, black coat and hat. "It's amazing men's fashion changes so little from planet to planet."

"May I come you tonight," Ben breathed in a rush, careful the Cuthberts wouldn't hear him from where they sat bundled in furs in the waiting sleigh.

Rey blushed, looking away from her temporary guardians and finding his magnetic stare. Heat ran through her veins at the fervour in his black eyes, and she went up on her tiptoes in the crunching snow to kiss his pale cheek.

"I'll be waiting."

No one questioned it when Rey retired to bed right after an early dinner that evening. The thin March sunset was still spreading across the cold, clear sky when Ben appeared at her side.

"Chores done for the night?" she asked casually, perched in the caned chair to unbutton her ankle high boots.

"Mmhm," he assured, sitting boldly on her bed to unlace his own massive boots "you?"

"All ready for bed," she said sweetly.

The room was chilly despite the heat radiating through the brick chimney that ran up one side of the little bedroom. They'd need to crawl under the covers of the narrow wrought iron bed later to stay warm together, feet to the stoneware warming pig.

"Help me?" Rey asked quietly, turning her back so he could see the row of buttons down the back of her borrowed Sunday dress. It was of a nice but serviceable dark green wool, simple white embroidered chains of daisies at the neck and cuffs.

Meditating a moment, his hand hovering over the seam, Ben recalled the delicate use of the Force to his mind. Rey felt a tingle of energy down her spine as the fastenings came free along her dress, corset, and undergarments.

"That was a rather elegant solution," she murmured. "I'll have to remember that one."

"I learned my lesson last time," he said, a half smile on his face as he pressed his mouth to the goose bumps between her shoulder blades.

"I should warn you that I'm still a bit sore," she admitted, "we'll have to be gentle. Like actually gentle, not carried away as you're prone to."

"I never get carried away," he lied, a hidden smile pressed into her skin.

Rey snorted. She began pulling pins from her hair.

"You can fly," he offered, "I'll co-pilot and do as I'm told."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow, her mouth full of pins.

"This time," he amended, combing his fingers through her loosened hair and pulling out one last pin for her. Retrieving the batch between her lips, he deposited them on her dressing table, and kissed her.

It felt natural. In the heavy, sleepy semi-darkness there was no rush, no battle for dominance. Their minds quiet and tired, bodies naked, it felt like they'd been together years, not days. The hum of presence in each other's mind, the fact Ben's body was confusingly still on the other side of Avonlea and lying next to her, it didn't matter.

"Let's see what I can do for my girl's aching nethers," he said in her ear, his soft black hair falling over their faces, tickling her neck. Pressing kisses under her ear, one enormous hand stroked down the planes of her body until they found their destination. Even in his general ignorance he could feel her labia was swollen and hot.

Ben watched Rey's face carefully as he made feather light strokes through the her curls.

"Is this okay?" he whispered.

"Yes," she said dreamily, wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling him down to kiss her properly from where she lay on her back beside him. This first orgasm he coaxed out, teasing her, enjoying her soft please please please. The swollen lips were slippery and fragrant, her body relaxed, a devastating smile he'd never properly seen before curving her mouth.

"What?" Rey asked softly, taking in her momentarily stunned lover. Ben shook his head. He didn't feel like explaining that never in his best dreams had he thought an expression of beauty like that could be meant for him. The words wouldn't have come out properly. He always made a mess of things with his mouth. Now there was a thought...

"What I did in the kitchen. Would you like me to do it again?"

Rey flushed.

"Please. Yes."

A spark of wickedness in his eyes, he slipped the covers over his head and burrowed underneath, in between Rey's legs.

"I want to see you," she complained, feeling the muscles of his shoulders and back through the blanket.

"It's too cold," he retorted, spreading her thighs. His legs hung well over the end rail, and he took a moment to shift to his knees, straddling the warming pan.

Shushing her surprised squeak, he hoisted Rey up his thighs until just her shoulders were on the bed and he had clear access to his target.

"What did you like best," he asked academically. "This," he tickled into her lips with the tip of his tongue, "this," he lathed a long wet tongue across the seam, bathing her clitoris, "or this." Cupping his around her clitoris he sucked at it. She gasped.

"That one," he said smugly, doing it again a few times before suddenly plunging his tongue in deep to fuck her with it.

"They're all good," Rey moaned, fingers finding nothing to grip to help her brace herself. "Just keep doing something."

"Oh," he said between deep, caressing licks around the edges of her vaginal opening, "believe me, I'm not going to stop until you're gushing in my face, or you tell me to."

Growling slightly as he redoubled his efforts, Rey's thighs began to shake on either side of his head. If she thought his hair tickled her neck, the sensation of the soft tendrils brushing against her sensitive bits was beyond reason.

As much as he was enjoying watching Rey fall apart, the taste of her second orgasm filling his mouth, bathing his tongue, dripping down his chin, he knew the discomfort of the erection digging into her back was becoming urgent.

Rey needed barely a breath to recover before she was pushing him away, scrambling off of his legs, throwing the blankets on the floor. Shoving Ben back, he hit his head on the bars of the end rail.

"What happened to gentle," he complained, rubbing his head. That thought evaporated as Rey straddled his torso, her legs stretched wide to fit his bulky form. He could still see her cum, shiny on her pussy, but now he also had a full view of her firm, pink-tipped breasts, the slender swell of her hips, and her intensely focused face.

"I need you inside of me. Now," she demanded quietly, running her fingertips over the bumps and grooves of muscle.

"Tell me to stop if you need a minute or for me to stop altogether," he said.

"We'll just start slow," she agreed, taking him in hand. Pretending she didn't hear his downright whimper when she touched him, she fed him into the place he'd so lovingly prepared.

Slick and ready, Ben felt her body relax around him. If their first time had been the wound, this second time would be the balm. Rey settled on top of him, and they took a moment to savour the connection of their bodies. Bending forward to cup his cheek, Rey searched Ben's eyes. They were so dark, and at this moment, so content. He felt safe. She made him feel safe. How many times in his tortured life had he truly felt safe.

"I'm not going to last," he said tightly, palming a breast, tugging at her hair, feeling her explore what movement felt good. Rey found she could gently buck forward and pleasure would radiate through her. She found if she arched back until her hair stroked his knees, Ben made all manner of interesting noises.

"Neither am I," she assured him, a rippling sensation spreading through her hips. He filled her up, and inside her was like crackling electricity around his thick penis. When Rey's third orgasm hit her like a wall, knocking the air from her lungs, Ben's was like being hit by lightning. Tingling in his fingers, ringing in his ears, stars in his eyes, pleasure crackled through his body, coming fast and hard inside of her.

Wrung out, Ben wrapped two large arms around her slight body, pulling her inexorably to his chest. He rested a hand on the side of her head, where she could feel the thunder of his heart.

"This planet will be sufferable as long as I'm with you," he sighed, eyes closing.

"Ben?" Rey said with a grin, sensing her partner drifting off to sleep. He wore an unguarded smile of his own. "Goodnight, Ben."

Separating their sticky, conjoined bodies, Rey let her head rest once again on her soon-to-be-husband.

Yes, a quick mental probe determined that he was falling deeper and deeper asleep. Accelerating the process with a gentle nudge from the Force, she pressed a final kiss to his full, flushed red lips, and broke their temporary connection. His departure left her cold, and she hated her plan.

There would be other nights to sleep in his arms, she promised herself. If he forgave her.

Sitting crossed-legged in the ruined sheets, feeling semen and mucus and trace amounts of blood seep from her core, Rey tried to focus. Mentally centred, she would need every ounce of energy she had left to complete her task.

Using the Force recklessly, she pushed out of herself and projected her mind to the place she had seen in Ben's memory. A copse of trees, an overgrown hedge, abandoned buildings, and carefully hidden in overgrown lilac, a damaged TIE. She drew closer to the ship, examining the damage.

It's true, with a little ingenuity Rey could probably fix it and they could escape this planet, but the risk of returning Kylo Ren to the First Order was too great. A beacon with a dying power cell still broadcast weakly into the empty night sky.

It was time for that to stop.

Whether by accident or design, no rescue was coming.

Reaching through a damaged access panel, Rey felt the shape of the TIE power cells in her mind.

Carefully, ever so carefully, she thought of fire.

The blast blew her back into her body, sprays of snow stuck in her love-tangled hair where she sat on the bed. The Jedi hastily probed Ben's mind to ensure he still slept.

In the darkness of the barn where he slept alone, taking form in the bed beside her, Rey felt his black eyes snap open.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My word,” Mrs Lynde had said faintly.
> 
> “My wife,” Ben had said darkly, only for Rey’s ears.

"Run into Matthew Cuthbert at the bank today," Thomas Lynde said over his boiled potatoes. "He had some news."

 

Rachel's hand on the butter knife stilled, her bread forgotten. Sharp eyes focused on her husband's mutton-chopped face. Rachel may have provided their family three meals a day for thirty-odd years, but Thomas knew how to keep his wife fed.

 

"The girl that's been livin' with them. Rey. She's gunna be married to John Blythe's farmhand."

 

"Married? Oh my, that's a hasty decision. I hope he can set her up with more than a barn loft and promises," she said critically, mentally planning an order in the Eaton's catalogue for enough yarn to make one of her famous cotton warp counterpanes as a present. She would normally choose a white for a wedding present, but prudence made her consider a range of handsome browns in case Rey would in fact be setting up housekeeping in a barn.

 

"They approached Reverend Allan to have the banns read," he said, dropping information like breadcrumbs.

 

"Already?" she said, putting her bread on her plate and reaching for her water. Forget the catalogue, she'd have to make due with the big Carmody shop selection of yarns, and a familiar lace pattern.

 

"He's going to make the first announcement this Sunday."

 

"Heavens!" Alright, the Avonlea dry goods store would have to suffice, no lacework. She picked up her fork and stabbed a pickled beet.

 

"Because the wedding's immediately after service in three weeks."

 

Rachel's fork, beet and all, fell into her water glass, her eyes bulging.

 

"Goodness gracious," she whispered. "Goodness gracious."

 

She stood up from the table and wandered off as in a trance.

 

Thomas chuckled as he heard the cupboard in the parlour open, baskets being pulled out.

 

He gave her a few minutes before going to check on her, finishing his dinner, dumping her pink water, and putting the kettle on for tea. Rachel would have a long night ahead. He carried his slice of pie down the corridor, knowing she'd be too preoccupied to scold him.

 

As expected, her found her on her knees, balls of wool in a ring around her.

 

"This is going to happen, Thomas," she said fiercely, brandishing a crochet hook at him with fire in her eyes. "I can do a bedspread in three weeks, and if it's some odd colours, well, they're an odd couple. At least they'll be warm."

 

***

 

Rey could feel Ben considering how to respond to her betrayal in rendering his ship irreparable. It simmered in the back of her mind, his historically volatile emotions like a storm cloud hovering over her thoughts.

 

Bread was made, meals prepared, books read aloud, floors scrubbed, farm tools whetted and oiled, the coffee grinder repaired, two shirts patched. Rey sat in the kitchen that afternoon, tea steaming on the table, a plate of fresh molasses cookies untouched, her knitting needles clacking away while she brooded. Marilla had gone to rest her eyes before a Lady's Society meeting that evening, leaving Rey alone with Ben's thoughts.

 

He wasn't sure.

 

He wasn't sure he could trust her.

 

He wasn't sure if she'd played him that whole time they'd been behaving like partners. Or had she sincerely been his romantic and intimate lover, then blithely stabbed him in the back. Had she plotted the sabotage in advance, or taken advantage of an opportune moment.

 

And now that there was no possibility for escape, was she still interested in being by his side? Or would she move on and build a life without him, confident he couldn't leave to go cause trouble in the galaxy.

 

"I have cookies," she thought at him, trying to infuse the words with welcome. She concentrated on seeing him.

 

"I'm milking a cow," he snarled, shaking hair out of his eyes and shoving his hat back to contain it. He sat on a short stool in the cattle barn where they'd left their scruples and their virginity, his hands moving with acquired skill over the teats.

 

Rey reached over and shoved a cookie into his open mouth. It projected out past his lips awkwardly, his eyes scathing.

 

"You have questions," she said, taking a sip of her tea. He chewed at the cookie, reeling it in with his tongue while his fingers kept at the chore.

 

"Yes, I'd been planning to ruin your ship since day one. No, not one moment of the time we've spent together was contrived or false."

 

He snorted.

 

"That's where my agenda ended," she shrugged. "If you'll still have me, and if you'll follow up on your promises, I'll marry you."

 

"Promises?" he said around a mouthful.

 

"Treat me like your empress, autonomy, chopping firewood, rafter shaking sex, all that. I even made you a wedding present."

 

She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small packet wrapped in brown paper.

 

Frowning, he gave the cow a gentle pat and wiped his hand on his trousers. Ben stood, reaching out and taking the gift. Eyes flicking between Rey's eager face and the package, he untied the brown ribbon.

 

Handkerchiefs. Half a dozen neatly hemmed linen handkerchiefs, each carefully embroidered with a design and a B and S.

 

"For bullshit," she said sweetly.

 

"Are those tiny ships?" he asked, bringing them closer to the light pouring in from the barn door to see the pattern she'd run around the initials.

 

"I told Marilla they were X's and O's, instead of X-wings and TIEs."

 

Ben made a humph sound, his anger with her fading.

 

"I've been working on a present for you too."

 

He turned his back on her, disappearing up the stairs with the handkerchiefs and reappearing with a small wooden box.

 

"The board's not done," he said, handing her the box.

 

Rey's experience with gifts was limited, and he watched her bright grin transform her into a beacon of joy.

 

"You made me something?"

 

He nodded, embarrassed.

 

"It's not much," he warned. "I didn't wrap it."

 

She slid the wooden slat off the top of the box, finding a mix of smooth chess pieces inside, half stained dark, half stained light. Picking up the ebony king she held him up to examine the detail in the crown. A tiny First Order symbol adorned the headpiece. 

 

"This is you, I imagine," she teased.

 

Plucking out a golden yellow piece with difficulty, his large fingers jamming into the narrow slot opening, he held it up to her.

 

"And this is you."

 

A graceful queen, the symbol of the resistance forming a tall, delicate crown.

 

"Will you teach me to play?"

 

A faint smile crossed his features.

 

"Rey, we're going to have a lot of long evenings ahead of us once we're married. I’ll teach you anything you want.”

 

“I don't own any books. You?"

 

He shook his head.

 

"And we won't be able to afford many until we're established."

 

"You'll have to tell me stories about the galaxy instead, remind me of our lives before earth. I imagine you've seen so many worlds."

 

Looking uncomfortable, Ben shifted. Rey watched him, an eyebrow raised.

 

"What are yo-"

 

Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling Rey into a tight embrace.

 

"I'm sorry you won't be able to see the universe, Rey," he said quietly into her ear.

 

"I've done my part for peace," she said firmly. "Exile here is a smaller price to pay than death."

 

"The thing is," he said cautiously. "The balance of power is shifting. Ask me yesterday and I'd have said I would give you up for my empire. Ask me today and I'm not so sure. I'm starting to realize there's no end to what I'd do for you Rey, what I'd do to be with you."

 

She allowed herself to relax in his arms, to rub her cheek against the warm fabric. 

 

"Mine," she purred.

 

"Can I kiss you?" she heard rumble through his chest.

 

Rey pushed back enough to tip back her face, close her eyes, and await his mouth.

 

His lips were so gentle as they drew her in deeper that she wondered absently if he was tasting her, mapping her, had some sort of design behind his movements.

 

"You're actually going to marry me," he murmured.

 

"Three weeks," Rey replied, snapping his suspenders. "Don't fuck it up."

 

Ben took a step back, running both hands through his hair, pulling off his toque, a bewildered expression on his face. He shook his head, looking at Rey top to bottom and back. 

 

"This is unreal. This can't be real. I'm going to make you happy here, Rey. We're going to have a good life here together. I never expected that. Ever."

 

Rey's smile was a little sad.

 

"We're children of slavery and abuse, Ben, oppression and a never ending war. Neither of us expected to end up in a little house, living our little domestic lives, probably raising strange little children, falling asleep in the arms of someone who loves us every night."

 

"Exile is somehow... liberating," he assessed. He chewed his lip, stifling the question he wanted to ask.

 

"Spit it out," she demanded wryly.

 

"Rey, you... you... um," he scratched at his neck, flushing pink.

 

"Love you?" she mercifully supplied. "Yes. Obviously."

 

"Obviously?"

 

"Ben, I packed myself into a pod and launched myself at the Supremacy in the heart of enemy territory for a chance to help free you," she frowned. "We talked about this literally yesterday. I thought you were smarter than this."

 

"Smart enough to remember you said cookies, plural," he said, reeling her back in to forage in her apron pockets.

 

“I expected you to be more angry,” she admitted, handing him cookies from off the plate in Marilla’s kitchen.

 

His eyes found hers.

 

“You made the choice. Now we both live with it. Any regrets?”

 

Rey pretended to thinking, making him smile a little.

 

“Yes. That I never got to get ravaged by Kylo Ren, mask and all.”

 

“I could put the dustbin on my head and take my clothes off, but ravaging is not really courting behaviour.”

 

“Courting?” she smiled.

 

“Don’t I owe you hand holding down country lanes, and bouquets of wildflowers? Presents of lace and hair ribbons, bad poetry, love notes hidden in the village green?”

 

“But chilly for all of that now. You’ll have to spoil your wife in the spring.”

 

“Never too cold for bad poetry,” he said seriously, falling to one knee with an intense expression. “Oh Rey, you make my day, I don’t care what the others say, you’ll always be mine I... pray?”

 

Rey laughed at him, and giving her a mock scowl, he swept her up into his arms for a kiss.

 

 

xxx

 

 

Rey returned to the Blythe's barn three weeks later in an altogether different manner.

 

The bridal carry entirely appropriate, Ben comfortably hefted Rey up the barn bridge and over the threshold of their temporary home. A small gold ring, supplied from a donated stash Reverend Allan kept locked in his desk, shone on her finger.

 

"They're going to call me Mrs Ben Solo, now?" Rey said for the fifteenth time. "What is wrong with this place?"

 

"Wasn't my decision," he reassured yet again. "You'll always be Rey of Jakku in this house. Barn. Loft."

 

Taking the steep wooden steps to the partitioned off quarters two at a time, Ben was eager to get her out of the borrowed dove grey gown she'd worn to the simple service.

 

"Welcome home," he announced, tossing her gently onto the hay-stuffed pallet. It had been made up with clean sheets, and a pretty blanket from the Lynde's. Some kind soul had left hot water bottles in the bed against the bitter late March cold, and a picnic supper.

 

Shedding his black suit with impossible speed, he pounced on the bed naked, half squashing Rey. She laughed, shoving him off of her.

 

"Kriff, you're like a furnace, Ben. Let me get this dress off before you ruin it."

 

"You have ten seconds," he warned, helped her with the back while she did the sleeves. "I want to fuck every part of you. I want to be in every part of you at the same time," he breathed.

 

"Every... what?" she trailed off, getting up to step out of the dress and laying it neatly on the old cedar chest beside the bed. "How would that even work."

 

Ben caught her ankle from his position on the bed and pulled it out from under her, making her fall into his waiting arms.

 

"We'll figure it out," he promised, "I'm sure we can be creative."

 

He swung her around, making her yelp, so that his face was lined up with her linen-clad nethers. He crawled on top of her, straddling her, and separated the layers of undergarments until he could see his goal. He flicked the buttons of the drawers open.

 

"I have a plan" he stated, looking down his bare chest to check her facial expression. Rey was scrutinizing the male anatomy she had in extremely close view over her face. With a "for science" focus, she licked at the heavy penis brushing her cheek. The skin was softer than she had anticipated, and his reaction greater.

 

"I imagine my mouth is a part of the plan," she said. Reaching up to squeeze his butt, letting them fill her palms, she wet her tongue and cupped the tip of his cock with her lips. Slurping him in deeper to the close heat of her mouth, she felt a tremble run through his body. 

 

Ben dropped his weight from his hands to his elbows, and buried his face in her sopping cunt. Gagging on her muffled cry, Rey felt his tongue penetrate her deeply, fucking into her with unexpected impact. Drool slipped out of her mouth and down one cheek, stretching wide to take his cock as far into her as she could.

 

It took only moments for Rey to feel the first ascension build in her, sucking him hard through her orgasm to relieve pressure. He panted through her intense ministrations, but held firm. 

 

Still on task, Ben bent Rey's leg at the knee and hooked it behind his neck, curving her backside up towards him. He swiped through the white and clear slick pooling out of her labia with two fingers until they were coated, and then pressed the mess to the puckered rim of her ass. 

 

"Every part, Rey," he breathed. "I'm going to be in every part of you now that we've been bound together." He pushed gently with one finger, but it was so lubricated that it slid in without effort. The second joined in almost as easily. Rey relaxed her jaw, finding the adjustment in her bottom easier than she anticipated. He set a slow pace, fingering her ass, that she could match with her mouth wrapped around his enormous penis. 

 

The return of his mouth to her weeping cunt, however, was less gentle. His tongue played in the mess, dragging her juices out with deep thrusts, pushing them around, using them to bathe her delicious pink clitoris.

 

Pleased, Ben felt he'd accomplished his goal. His wife's body couldn't be more full of him. Rocking his hips he felt her coaxing at his straining cock, his testicles painfully tight. He could have sworn his tongue and his fingers were nearly touching, buried so deeply in her ass and vagina. 

 

"Come again for me," he demanded, timing a wet, fluttery lick with his mouth with a curving stroke of his fingers. Rey was fighting for control, he could see it in the flickers of her face he saw during caught breaths.

 

"Ben, Ben, I'm-" Rey gasped around him, arching her spine, forcing him in deeper. He felt her muscles contract, a wave of fresh, slippery cum coating his face. 

 

Pulling his cock out of her mouth while he finished, he left a pool of semen on her tongue, letting the stream spray her face, neck, and the expanse of chest above her corset.

 

Turning himself around, he straddled her again on his knees, gripped her hard, corseted waist in both hands.

 

He rubbed his spent penis on the silky ribbons, the soft fabric broken by hard ridges of boning.

 

"All three at once," Rey said dreamily from where she still lay on her back, not attempting to clean herself up. "What was the other part of your plan?"

 

"Fuck every hole," he said, pleased to find blood returning already at the thought of his plan. He pushed his sticky fingers into her mouth, letting her taste herself. "One down."

 

"Hell of a consummation," she chuckled lightly. "Were you expecting me to run away and annul?"

 

“You’re a flight risk,” he muttered. “I’ll have to keep you interested.”

 

He tugged Rey's backside up his kneeling thighs, her legs falling open to either side of his hips. Half-hard again, he impaled her, then stilled.

 

"Take off your clothes," he ordered, not moving from deep inside. Rey threw him a dirty look, but began to struggle against buttons and fastenings, half-upside down.

 

To complicate matters, Ben began making featherlight circular strokes around her clitoris. Her eyes closed, a breathy little orgasm making her fingers clumsy.

 

“Having trouble, Mrs Solo?”

 

“You could be more helpful, you know.”

 

“Could I?” he mocked, enjoying her struggle.

 

Temper flaring, Rey lifted her body up with her abdominal muscles so she sat on his thighs. Grunting at the sudden change of angle, Ben felt her grip his hair tightly with both hands at the base of his skull and pull his head back.

 

“I will tie you back onto that wagon wheel unless you learn to play nice,” she threatened, easing herself up and down on him a few times.

 

Looking at the rafters, Ben remembered his promise.

 

“Just don’t scare the cattle,” he said wryly, “when I make you scream.”

 

xxx

 

Rey rolled over and smiled at the slack-muscled closed-eye expression on her new husband's face. 

 

"Ben?"

 

She smiled, pressing a kiss to his burning forehead.

 

"Have a good sleep."

 

Snuggling in deeper to his side, Rey found herself very awake. There hadn't been an opportunity to look around his- no, their -living quarters when she arrived. It was sparse, many items protected in metal tins from the barn mice.

 

The picnic basket.

 

Stomach growling, Rey carefully extricated herself from Ben's hot, heavy limbs, and went to explore. Inside were jars of preserves, bread, cured meats, cheese, and a small fruitcake dusted with powdered sugar. A bottle of red currant wine stuck out from one side, Marilla's handwriting on the label in large angry letters spelling “MEDICINAL”.

 

Starting without him, Rey nibbled on the cake, settling the wobbly stool at the tiny trestle table. The top was scored, burnt, water damaged, and stained, but she noticed a series of fresh hash marks carved in a row.

 

The sugary cake dissolving in her mouth, she counted one mark for every day since the crashes. He had still been making marks right up until the very morning of their wedding, despite his outward peace at staying.

 

Throwing a guilty look at her sleeping partner, she questioned again her decision to strand them there. Right or wrong, it was done.

 

Despite the one-sidedness of their conversations, Rey knew that the vow she’d taken that day meant she was as responsible for his future happiness as he was hers. She’d do her best. She meant the words she’d spoken aloud in the little church, surrounded by a clatch of newly beloved strangers.

 

If there was something she and Ben had in common, they were true to their word. She knew he meant his vow today as sincerely as she meant hers, that the emotion she felt welling up inside of him, overwhelming them both, was an emotionally noisier version of her quieter love.

 

Procuring more cake, Rey sat back, remembering how handsome he looked standing at the alter in his plain black suit, one bold crocus in the lapel. The first flower of the year from Rachel Lynde’s famous garden. She’d put together a small bouquet of fragrant cedar fronds, and sprays of holly berries, wrapped with a tartan ribbon. 

 

Declared man and wife, Ben had kissed her without prompting, a hand to her lower back curving her in to be devoured.

 

“My word,” Mrs Lynde had said faintly.

 

“My wife,” Ben had said darkly, only for Rey’s ears.

 

“Think we’ll see Anne up here one day?” Rey has heard Marilla whisper to her brother, discreetly wiping her nose after the service. 

 

“Reckon so,” he’d responded.

 

“Who do you think it’ll be? I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up living far away in some exotic place. Be nice if she stayed close to Avonlea, but it’s a fair bit too small for that imagination of hers.”

 

“She likes the Blythe boy,” Matthew said bluntly, a smile in his eyes that wasn’t allowed to spread to his mouth.

 

“How do you know that, Matthew?” Marilla said sternly, adjusted her good shawl to disguise her eager interest. “Has she said something about him?”

 

“She’s said next to nuthin’ about him,” Matthew stated.

 

“Well when you put it like that,” she agreed.

 

Rey was led to believe Anne was a chatty young woman. That had made life at Green Gables an extra pleasant period for Rey, because Marilla was used to answering fifty questions a minute, and Matthew could listen for hours on end. A few times Rey had strayed into dangerous territory with him, mentioning other planets, space travel, droids, ships, and had to carefully explain them away as flights of fancy or adjust the narrative, and Matthew was calm as ever.

 

Now she’d entered another stage of life, a surprisingly dangerous one. The mortality of wives was so tenuous. If not child birth, then hearth death, illness, accidental poisoning, sepsis from common kitchen injuries. A tree could fall on Ben, or an axe give him a wound that could not be properly tended here, but his life was much more stable going forward.

 

Except illness.

 

Rey frowned, zeroing in on his face. Exertion could have given him the sheen on his pale skin. Same with the heat radiating off his body.

 

Pulling on a shift, she knelt down beside him on the bed and touched his cheek and neck. Furnace.

 

“Ben, would you like some water?” she asked, stroked his chest, kissing his forehead.

 

“Mm-hm,” he said lightly, waking. “Thirsty.” He sat up, giving her an intimate smile that pushed worry away for a moment. 

 

“You’re warm,” she said while he drank, “feeling okay?”

 

He put the empty cup down and pulled her back into bed, kissing under her jaw, down her neck.

 

“Too much excitement, had a sore throat the last couple days. I’ll be fine after some rest,” he assured, his voice thick with sleep. “It’s not everyday one marries the scavenger of their dreams.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this without properly editing so apologies!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of our strange journey to Avonlea!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please view additional tags for this chapter in end notes.

Morning sunlight arrived with the realization that Ben was most certainly not fine.

 

A blotchy red rash was spreading down from his throat, his lips pale as they asked constantly for water.

 

“Your temperature is way too high,” Rey repeated, checking him yet again with her hand. “Did you save any of the medical supplies from your TIE?”

 

He shook his head on the pillow.

 

“Nothing would have helped. It was just a basic injury kit. It’s just a bit of fever, Rey, stop worrying.” He took her hand and squeezed it. The pressure was weak.

 

“I’m going to go see about getting a doctor to look at you,” she decided, standing up and gathering her winter clothes. “I need to go to the pump for fresh water anyway.”

 

It was a mark of Ben’s illness that the next thing he saw was the pale blonde mutton chops of a middle-aged man pulling his eyelids apart to look at the whites. He flinched, and turned his head away from the stranger who had moved to pressing the painful lumps on either side of his throat.

 

“Alright there, lad, I’m Doctor Connor. Just let me have a look at you. Your new missus came and asked me to have a look and you know what I told her the moment I saw that rash? Scarlet fever. Ya never had it as a wee one then, then?”

 

Trying to shake his head but finding it difficult, he found Rey’s frightened eyes. 

 

“No, he hasn’t had it before,” she interpreted.

 

“Rotten luck, best to get it over with before you can even remember it.” The doctor turned sharply to Rey. “Have you had it?”

 

“No,” she shook her head, “I don’t think so.”

 

“Is there anyone else who can nurse? You’re already exposed, if you both are ill is there anyone to come care for you?”

 

“I’ll think about it,” she deflected. “What can I do?”

 

He gave her some advice, saying he’d be back in the evening. Rey spent the day making broth and tea, tending her giant patient with cooling clothes and sweet words, but the fever raged on.

 

Taking Ben’s pulse at the wrist, his eyes focused on his gold pocket watch, the doctor lingered before giving his assessment. He cleared his throat, and placed Ben’s arm gently back on his unconscious chest.

 

“How long has it been since he was lucid? Speaking and such?”

 

“A couple hours now,” Rey said, wiping the sweat off her face with the corner of her apron. She was exhausted from worry. John Blythe had brought them dinner as a honeymoon courtesy, not knowing of his hired man’s sudden plight, but she couldn’t eat it.

 

“Some honeymoon,” Mr Blythe had said gently. “Once he’s back on his feet I’ll give him a few more days off so you can have a proper wedding journey, maybe up to Charlottetown to see a play, or a little boat cruise around the island out of Carmody.”

 

The words had been kindly meant, but his tone had struck her deeply. Rey hadn’t needed to probe into Mr Blythe’s mind to know what he thought.

 

“Mrs Solo,” the doctor said slowly, in the same gentle tone as Mr Blythe’d had earlier. “I think you may need to prepare yourself for the likelihood that your husband may not recover from this illness. It’s taken a strong hold on him, and his body seems completely unable to fight it off.”

 

Choking back her tears, Rey kept her face to the doctor, eyes to eyes.

 

“Is there anything-“

 

“Nothing,” he said softly. “There’s nothing more to be done but wait and pray. Maybe the Lord will have mercy on a young bride.”

 

“But he was fine yesterday,” she burst out. “He was fine.”

 

“He wasn’t fine, Mrs Solo, it just hadn’t progressed this far yet. Scarlet fever can overwhelm even a healthy constitution like your husband’s. Now let me see your throat.”

 

Rey allowed him to touch her neck, to look at her mouth. He pursed his lips and looked grim.

 

“One thing at a time,” he murmured, picking up his bag. “Lots of rest tonight, Mrs Solo. I’ll be back in the morning.”

 

xxx

 

Marilla was startled to hear a pounding at the front door of Green Gables after lunch. She brought her hand towel with her out the kitchen door and around the frosty porch to see who was there.

 

“Come in this way, by the kitchen,” she called, “that’s the front door.”

 

A small party of strangers eyed her speculatively, and she raised an eyebrow.

 

“Come on,” she said, turned her back on them before she took cold in the late winter wind.

 

She put the kettle on and brought out tea things without thinking, listening for the door to shut. Turning, Marilla almost dropped her fine floral spray teapot.

 

The woman standing in her kitchen was not a woman who belonged standing in kitchens. In age and demeanour she was very like Marilla, made of stern stuff and a good heart, but there the likeness ended. Wrapped in a fine, long white winter coat, polished ivory buttons, with an elaborate white hat with silver trim, the woman had an air of power, grace, wisdom. 

 

“I’m looking for my son and a young woman named Rey,” she stated bluntly. “He’s tall, broad, dark hair, dark eyes, may be going by the name Kylo Ren, or,” she hesitates, “possibly Ben.”

 

Marilla raised an eyebrow.

 

“You’re Ben Solo’s mother?”

 

There was a sharp intake of breath at the name from one of the regal woman’s party. A curly haired young man, holster on his hip and suspicion in his stance. A slim young woman rounded out the trio, taking the older woman’s white coat to reveal a silvery grey dress and silver jewelry.

 

“He’s going by Solo,” she said quietly, taking the young woman’s wrist as if to ground herself.

 

“It appears so, General,” the woman responded reassuringly.

 

Marilla offered her a seat in the parlour while they waited for tea, but the woman declined.

 

“My name is Leia. We’ve been able to track them to this area from their beacon, but the signal stopped. I’ve got something of a mental connection with my son using the Force, which has led us here, but I fear something has happened to him. The bond has weakened today, but I can feel his distress.”

 

Marilla hesitated.

 

“I didn’t understand the half of that, but I doubt he’s feeling much distress. He was married yesterday.”

 

“Married? Yesterday?” Leia said faintly, confused. She sank into a seat at the kitchen table. “To whom?”

 

“Rey, they said they knew each other from before they came here.”

 

“What?” the young man blurted, before throwing a stony expression on over his shock at Leia’s pointed glance.

 

“Rey and Ben married yesterday,” Leia said slowly more as confirmation than question. “Where are they now?”

 

“If I understand correctly, they’re living in John Blythe’s cattle barn until they get on their feet. Rey lived here until the wedding. Fine young woman, smart as a whip.”

 

“Supreme Leader Ren is living in a barn,” the curly hair man snickered.

 

“Direct me to them,” Leia commanded, her tone polite but firm. “Please. Now.”

 

Marilla gave the the simple instructions to the neighbouring farm, and watched the party hasten out the door.

 

“Supreme... Leader... Ren,” Marilla said into her teacup, watching the strangers head down the muddy, icy laneway, no carriage or sleigh in sight. “And to think Anne is missing all of this. She’ll think I’ve lost my head in one of her wild stories.”

 

***

 

Leia found the house, John Blythe himself at the door to greet her.

 

“Saw your buggy coming up the lane, ma’am,” he said politely, a dishcloth in one hand and a wet plate in the other. “How can I be of service?”

 

“I’m looking for Ben Solo. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

 

Mr Blythe raised an eyebrow but lost no time putting down his clean lunch dish and throwing on his coat.

 

“This way,” he said, looking askance at her white coat on the slushy path. “The doctor was here this morning. It, um, it doesn’t look- are you kin to Ben?”

 

“I’m his mother,” Leia said, advancing past the farmer to reach the barn first. She hiked up her coat and skirts to climb the barn bridge, the rest trying to keep up. Once in the barn, darker than the daylight outside, she stopped just long enough to let her eyes adjust before ascending to the loft.

 

“Ben?” she called, fear in her voice. His life force felt so weak where it tied to hers, thinning and fading. There would be no response from Ben.

 

Waxy white in the face with scarlet creeping up his chest, her son was a pale shadow of himself. She could hear every straining beat of his tired heart in hers, every weak, gurgling breath. The smell of sweat and urine was strong in the small space, his sheets saturated.

 

“Rey?” she said, noticing the figure sitting criss cross behind his head, her fingers resting on his temples. Watery blood had trickled from Ben’s ears, staining the pillow. Rey’s face was an ashy mask, her back hunching with exhaustion, her eyes closed with concentration. In the lantern light Leia could see angry red rash across Rey’s neck.

 

Leia reached out with the Force to the girl, her daughter in law. She was like an anchor, using all of her strength to keep Ben from slipping away, but her energy was flagging, her reserves drained. This wasn’t healing, this was simply tethering. 

 

Ben’s body was quietly shutting down anyway.

 

“Get them onto the ship,” Leia croaked, falling to her knees in the straw. She rested her fingers on Rey’s, lending her vital strength. 

 

 

xxx

 

 

Rey woke up to a storm, lightning flickering through the window. A bad taste sat in her mouth, and she reached for the cup of water she kept on the delicate bedside table. It wasn’t there. Nothing was there. Just bare glass and metal walls.

 

“Some honeymoon,” a familiar voice said kindly, pressing a metal bottle of water into her weak fingers, making sure she had a good hold on it before releasing the weight.

 

“Finn?” Rey whispered, eyes searching. What she’d taken for lightning was hyperspace, casting a flickering blue glow on Finn’s gentle face.

 

“You’re going to be alright, peanut, we got you help in time. The infection is knocked out, now you just need to recover your strength.”

 

She swung her legs around, moving into a sitting position that left her dizzy. Steadying her, Finn pulled her into a hug.

 

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he said. “Leia was ready to pull apart the universe to find you both.”

 

“I can’t-“ Rey blurted before she stopped herself, heart sinking. She put a hand on her forehead, hiding her eyes as they flew shut in concentration. A headache was blooming as she strained.

 

There was nothing from Ben. The bond was silent.

 

“He’s down the hall,” Finn said gently. “He’s alive, I think, but it’s wasn’t good. Leia’s with him now.”

 

“How,” Rey asked, taking a drink to ease her throat. There were marks on her wrist from medical droid treatments, and an erasable scan code.

 

“Once we were off planet Leia commandeered a medical ship to rendezvous with us in known space. I don’t know where we’re going now, I’ve been in here since we jumped to light speed.”

 

“I have to see him,” Rey said, grabbing Finn’s shoulder to leverage herself up. He took the bottle and helped her, knowing a losing argument. The wedding ring felt strange as she flexed her fingers.

 

“The droids washed you, and changed you into the hospital pajamas,” he said, “I promise Poe & I weren’t here. Rose brushed your hair out, it was full of shards of bent metal that stuck in the droid’s gears.”

 

They shambled together out into a narrow corridor, non-slip floor and a double rail a mercy to Rey.

 

The common, mass produced world of space crafts felt strangely sterile now after months of a highly personalized, lovingly curated, artisan crafted environment. The textures of Rey’s life had become homespun, hand carved, with character and fragrance. Animals, insects, wind, snow, fire, and all their ambient noises were replaced by the measured hums of the mechanical.

 

“So what possible circumstances would lead to you marrying Ren?”

 

“Ben,” she corrected. “It’s a long story. I just didn’t like him, but we had this bond. We got to spend more time together. Now I do. Like him.”

 

“Just like that,” Finn said, unconvinced.

 

“More or less,” she answered, picking up her pace. Her legs moved easier, unhampered by long skirts, but the corridor was cool through the thin fabric.

 

“Here,” Finn pointed, preparing to knock on a frosted glass slider. Rey hit a button on the access panel, not waiting for permission. 

 

The room was large, capable of being used by several droids for surgery or treatment at the same time. The bed in the centre of the room looked small under the bright lights, stranded without a wall to visually anchor it. Leia stood at the window, looking out into hyperspace, her back to them.

 

“General,” Finn said, following Rey into the chamber.

 

Turning, Leia’s face lit with hope as she saw Rey. She crossed to them, taking the young woman’s hand, and guiding her to the bed.

 

Where Rey has expected to see the high contrast of Ben’s dark mop against the white pillow there was a a mint green paper cap. Black brows alone broke the pale layers of man and bedding, his lips cracked and white.

 

“He’s breathing on his own now, even if he hasn’t woken up,” Leia stated with weary triumph. She pressed Rey’s fingers to his head. “He’s not sedated anymore. Is he there?”

 

It was easier to watch Leia take a small pot of something clear and dab it gently on Ben’s lips than to probe the sick man’s head.

 

What would Rey do if merely his body had survived, a husk? If she pushed into his mind to find it... absent?

 

“You’ve got this,” Finn whispered.

 

Taking a deep breath, Rey opened herself to the Force, and let it fill her. She felt the cool skin of Ben’s temples under her fingertips, and channeled her energy toward their bond.

 

_Ben_ , she whispered into his mind, starting small. A flicker responded. The mental equivalent of a single dandelion fluff, caught in a tornado. 

 

Somewhere out there, Rey knew with determination, that meant there must be a dandelion.

 

“There’s something,” she said, not wanting to delay any joy of Leia’s. “I’ll try again.”

 

_Come home_ , she beckoned.

 

A tugging sensation nearly staggered her. Finn helped support her as her consciousness was used like a rope to mark the path of safety.

 

_Rey, Rey, Rey_ echoed around through Ben’s mind, through the bonds into hers.

 

“His eyelid flickered,” she heard Leia state, excitement barely contained. A presence joined Rey in Ben’s mind, a thin tendril of Leia herself welcoming her son. Rey wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a mother whose heart and thoughts could be so present.

 

Then, like a handful of smoke, Ben’s mind was gone again.

 

xxx

 

Rey wiped her running nose with a delicately embroidered handkerchief.

 

“I think. I think this is what he’d have wanted,” she sniffed, staring at the freshly carved headstone. A late May breeze blew the overwhelming fragrance of the lilac-studded cemetery hedge over her, letting her shoulders roll back and relax a little. “It’s so beautiful here.”

 

Soapwort was blooming pink around the base already, clover creeping green and white across the settling soil.

 

“He was a good man,” Marilla said, taking her arm as they turned from the grave. “That’s the important thing.” Her voice was uncharacteristically thick.

 

The gate of the cemetery was flanked by apple trees, white with blossoms, snowing in the breeze. A pebble path led past the church, to the laneway where Ben waited.

 

He took his handkerchief back from Rey, tucking it from its still habitual place in his back pocket. Taking her hand and enfolding it in his own elbow, he leaned in to let Rey rest her head on his chest.

 

_How is she?_

 

 

 

_ Grieving. I’m glad she has Rachel Lynde and Anne, the daughter. _

 

“I’ll admit, I worried for your husband, Rey. When his mother whisked you all away in the-“ the older woman struggled a moment, “-vehicle, I feared the worst. One moment she was in my kitchen, the next she was storming off to the Blythe barn, and then the, you know, thing, rising up from the trees in the potato field like a flying bed warming pan.”

 

_What did she say?_

 

 

 

_She worried about you. And she saw Leia’s ship’s take off. We talked about it on the walk to Matthew’s grave. Said she won’t look at the stars the same way, and says she can’t tell a soul or they’d lock her up. She thought there’s a chance Mrs Lynde, the neighbour, may have seen as well, but neither have dared mention it._

 

 

 

_ That’s kind of her to worry, we only met once or twice. She must like you. _

 

“It could have been much worse,” Rey acknowledged. “The hearing loss is manageable when we’re together, but he struggles when he’s alone and an alarm goes off, or someone knocks on the door.”

 

Marilla nodded, thinking about her eyes.

 

“When the war is over we’ll be able to look at some of the tech andprocedures that have had some success, but not while things are so chaotic. How did Anne take the loss of Matthew?”

 

“Hard. Very hard. She’s a good girl, and Matthew was very dear to her. She’s decided to put off her scholarship and stay here at Green Gables with me so I won’t be alone.”

 

_???_

 

 

 

Anne will stay with Marilla, she won’t be alone here.

 

 

 

_ Good. That’ll will be hard on Anne, though. _

 

“Will that be hard on Anne?”

 

“She’ll do courses by correspondence while she teaches.”

 

_Correspondence._

 

 

 

_ Ah, that’s something. _

 

“I don’t know if this is an appropriate question, but the reason you got married in such haste, did it ever come to fruition?” Marilla asked cautiously. 

 

She had a small yellow knitted blanket wrapped in brown paper hidden in the spare bedroom, just in case the pair returned, as they had today, to visit, alleviate fears, and pick up a few sentimental belongings. Rey was slim as ever, though, so Marilla felt forced to be rude to determine if the gift was to be given.

 

Rey shook her head with practiced tranquility. Ben didn’t ask her to pass along Marilla’s questions, he knew the look on Rey’s face when someone asked about their progeny.

 

“No, and it won’t now after the fever, but when we have a home to offer we’ll find a little someone who needs it. I think you’re as aware as anyone that families are made with love and not blood.”

 

Marilla patted her hand.

 

“Come back with me to the house. You can meet Anne, and I have a present you can keep in storage as long as you need to. What’s your home like now? You said it was chaotic?”

 

_She asked about what our home is like now._

 

 

 

_ Tell her most of the time I wish I was back with the cows instead of that safe house on Fest. _

 

Rey did, and added her own two cents.

 

“We’ve been on the move. There’s no where that Ben is really safe. My people don’t trust him, outside of a few good friends, and he’s being hunted by his former allies.”

 

“Turn a thought to coming back here? Sounds like we’re a long way here from the world you know.”

 

“It’s crossed our minds,” Rey said with a gentle smile.

 

xxx

 

“Found it,” he said cheerfully, a little too loud, but it didn’t matter when they were alone and outside.

 

_Found what?_ Rey asked.

 

“The rock,” he said, satisfaction oozing through the bond while he dropped the full rucksack onto the ground.

 

_Careful, don’t break the chess set,_ she reminded him. He sent her a mental imagine in response of wrapping the pieces in the little blanket from Marilla.

 

Furrowing her brows, Rey took to scanning their surroundings. Despite the knee-high sweet hay they walked through it was... familiar.

 

_What rock?_

 

Ben moved behind her, splaying his hands across her linen shirtwaist, pulling her tight against his chest. He was hard.

 

_Oh._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ We have unfinished business here, Mrs Solo._

 

 

 

 _Then better get to it,_ she thought warmly.

 

To be honest, over the months of his recovery, they’d only been intimate a handful of times. Rey welcomed his enthusiasm, but knew they’d have to conserve his strength.

 

“Think I left off,” he said, bending Rey forward over the rock and hitching up her skirts, “here. As I recall, you were demanding I fuck you properly.”

 

_And you declined,_ she reminded him.

 

“More fool me,” he muttered, letting his fingers slide from her corset to under the skirts, between her drawers. Of course she was slippery, ready for him.

 

_What a gentleman you were_ , she teased, _merely leaving spurts of semen oozing down my thighs_.

 

“What a lady,” he moaned, moving the dripping fingers back out to trail streakily up her lace-clad neck, into her romantic-but-bound low knot and wicker sun bonnet. He tugged the silk ribbons holding the hat on, arching her neck back to expose the vulnerable skin. “Letting me.”

 

He didn’t waste any time shrugging out of his black suspenders, easing open his trousers, and fucking into her. Rey Solo was his, bound by her will, bound by the Force, bound by this planet’s culture and laws, and he would have her.

 

Birds and crickets filled the silence with chirps, soft breezes through the trees and field boundaries carrying salt-tang spring florals. In communion with the summer day, they waited for Rey to adjust to his size, buried inside of her. She didn’t mind Ben leaning heavily into her back, sharing his weight.

 

It was peaceful here, and even as she braced her forearms on the boulder out in the middle of an open field, she felt safe in his arms.

 

“I don’t know how long,” he started to say, moving to thrust so hard it took her off her toes.

 

_We’ll switch when you get tired,_ she finished, noisy breaths and small cries silencing the birds nearby.

 

This time Rey got the counter-pressure she needed to orgasm fast and hard around him, his fingers rubbing at her clitoris while he worked away.

 

_Are you close?_

 

 

 

_ Not really. _

 

Rey pushed back against him, his penis sliding out abruptly. She shoved Ben to the ground. Expression surprised, he adjusting quickly when he realized she’d followed him down to straddle him. Surrounded by the tall hay blowing in a soft breeze, only Rey’s head and shoulders were caught in the sunlight. Shaded by her, Ben could make out the fine details in her face, the spark in her eyes when she took him back in.

 

Expecting her to be sensitive, he braced his hands on her hips and dragged her forward with each of her swaying up and downs on him, grinding her clitoris against his pelvis. Rey felt the thick slide of his cock up the front of her insides. It felt like only the corset was keeping her body together, stuffed with him, slick with him, every part of her bound with him in an increasingly quivering mass of pleasure. 

 

“God, Rey,” Ben moaned, “you’re going to kill me.”

 

She pulled open his shirt, letting biting kisses fall onto the muscles.

 

_You’ll live, Solo,_ she demanded, straightening up, bending back until she absolutely strained to contain all his cock inside her. Her breasts ached to be touched in their prison, her nipples alive against the fabric as they shifted rhythmically.

 

Ben felt close now, Rey thought with anticipation. He trembled under her, throbbing in her, a final twisting thrust with her body tightening and releasing his. Swearing through his orgasm, Ben was determined to bring her along. He moved one hand to the front of her, a thumb to her clitoris, and one to the back, pressing gently against her rear. Fucking her through his finish, he massaged wildly from both sides of her, spreading fresh cum as lubrication.

 

A toe-curling wail racked Rey, startling an entire flock of blackbirds who took flight, a thousand-strong, swooping and fleeing the field together. She pressed her hands to her bound breasts to relieve pressure, panting. Ben smiled and pointed to the birds.

 

“I could tell by your face without the birds, but that was loud, wasn’t it,” he teased.

 

_Maybe we should stay here,_ Rey said, while Ben guided her head down to rest on his heart. He felt stronger when she was this close. _There’s room to breathe, and we know the way home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: brief mention of infertility, off page death of most beloved character
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for coming along for the ride on this strange, cracky crossover!


End file.
